A/N: Weeell. Excuses mean little at this point, but I truly am sorry. I hope you enjoy this chapter (pretty dang long, ain't it?) and thank you for reading!
End 6
Light travels faster than anything else. We can see the stars, and dream of them, and feel as though we are close to the light. Close to the end, close to the heavens, even though they are lifetimes away.
I awoke on the dock, with a prick reminiscent of the night before. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, matching the ocean waves, speeding up from a dim nothing to a solid, pulsing life. I was alive, and for the first sickening time in my life, I found nothing to be more terrible than that fact.
Caitlin pulled the needle from my neck and observed me with curious eyes as I trembled violently. She threw the needle carelessly into the ocean beside her, inches away from us. The sky was gray and storming, angry. It did not want these people here. They could not belong here; they could not be standing on the beach. But they were, against all of nature, because of me.
Kai didn't even seem to belong anymore, not in the gray shadow of the sun. The wind was cold and freezing; summer had transformed into winter. The impossible was occurring, even though I knew I had been gone for so long, and that fall had to have happened... but it had gone by without me. It was a quick death.
He snaked an arm around my waist and another impossibility broke reality.
I slapped him and backed away.
Caitlin hissed in surprise and fury. They had thought their plan had worked, they thought I was still a child crying in the dark. But I had broken into the true bloody world, as dark as my child's womb but nowhere near as safe and comforting.
"If Won and Zack see any of that behavior," a sudden deep voice interrupted, "We will be forced to dispatch them. Do you understand, Miss Chite?"
Kai acted as if nothing had happened. A confident grin was on his face, and as Won and Zack exited their cabin, his arm was lightly holding my waist once more, his hand squeezing my shoulder. As though he could comfort me.
The sight of these familiar people, especially Zack, was almost too much.
"Popuri!" He called, a strained smile crossing his moustached face. "Thought you'd never come back! Just about broke Lil- your family's heart, it did. But here you and that... rascal are." It was probably the warmest welcome I would receive.
"Hey, Zack. Wow, never thought I'd see this place in Winter. Man, is it cold!" His tanned face glowed in the cloudy, surreal light of the sun.
Zack turned then, and what I saw behind him made the tears spring fresh to my eyes. I didn't care about the plan, I wouldn't do it, couldn't do it...
I ran to my brother, my protective, obsessive, precious brother.
His arms only wrapped around me once I had thrown myself at him, breathed in his familiar scent, that of the chicken farm, of mom and dad. His embrace was light, unsteady.
He didn't want to hug me. I had lost everything with him, years and years of banter and love and trust. A fall I had never seen had killed our relationship in an early frost.
"Popuri," he said, and I pushed my face into his blonde hair.
"I missed you," I whispered, because I knew if I spoke, it would become gasping sobs. I quivered in the arms of a stranger who I used to know just as well as myself.
He set me down and turned his attention to the traveller whom I had finally understood. I thought he might kill him. I had imagined him blowing up. If he exploded at mere visits by an innocent chicken girl to her traveller, he would surely react with at least a punch to this dark, unknown kidnapper. It was my last sliver of hope, the last piece of resistance to their flawless plan. If Rick rejected our relationship-
He stuck out one open hand, and even Kai's expression seemed to start with surprise before smoothing itself once again into certainty. Rick's girly, white hand met with Kai's dark, large one, and with a sudden nod, they shook.
"I'm giving her to you," Rick said slowly, "But you better treat it as the best gift of your life. And Popuri isn't leaving Mineral Town again anytime soon."
No. NO, Rick!
He turned, back to my shocked expression, and searched for acceptance with his clear blue eyes. I shook my head, but he must have interpreted it as disbelief, because he chuckled quietly.
In one solid motion, his fist jutted out and slammed Kai in the face. The man in the purple bandanna put one hand to his bleeding nose and lip and grinned.
"That," Rick added, "Was for running away with her in the first place, you stupid womanizer. If you and Popuri... felt like you couldn't be together in Mineral Town because of me, I'm here to prove you wrong. So this time, stay. I'd rather have Popuri with you as an attachment than no Popuri at all."
I tried to tell him with my eyes, tried to tell him everything, but he misunderstood. He had not seen what I had seen, he had not even begun to lose his faith in everything he had ever known. Rick had gone through a horrible time the year before, but it had only strengthened him, made him harder in the end. I was weak glass, with nothing substantial left.
Rick noticed the large amount of people standing on the dock then, Caitlin awkwardly standing with her arms crossed, Maria with her hands on her hips in an impatient yet stunning pose.
"You've brought...?"
"My family," Kai volunteered, waving to them absentmindedly. "I was really hoping they wouldn't come, but you know how people get sometimes. They heard about all of... this."
The murderers, the people who had given me horror and pain for months, were suddenly cheerful, grinning, beautiful even.
Maria, Kai's sister, strutted over to Rick with an expression I could only describe as coy.
"We have heard SO much about darling Popuri's family." She lay one perfect brown hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "I am also looking forward to seeing Karen again, and her sweet little hometown. We've met before, you know, in the city. Though that was forever ago... I hope she's not too mad we borrowed her almost little sister. I was just completely shocked when Kai brought her around... Never expected it." Her gaze drifted to Kai and a burning victory trembled in her eyes. "This has all worked out for the best, though."
Rick smiled weakly. "I just kind of want to do this thing. Soon. I told Carter tomorrow first thing in the morning... Is that fine with you, Popuri?"
My head wouldn't nod, because poison was running through my mind.
I was giving up, relinquishing my hold on resistance slowly. My death had been my only plan, my only escape and solution. I had been so sure, but with that conviction gone, it was becoming harder and harder to resist that offer.
Behind Rick, I could imagine a healthy mama and a returned father. We wouldn't be able to stay on the island, no, but we could make our home somewhere else, together. We'd be a family...
And Kai and I...
I could resist him in my anger, I could reject him for a short while. But that mysterious man, that handsome and playful man, would be the one I was married to. I hadn't dreamed about him for my entire life to let go of him in an instant. As horrible as it was, I had not lied. I still loved him, and I probably always would.
Kai answered for me. "That sounds great, doesn't it, father?"
Our destruction was sealed in every one of their smiles.
It felt wrong to be so happy, so loved, in the worst of times.
Mama stood at the edge of our farm, hands clutched in prayer. Even if Rick had given up on me, Mama had waited, just as she always would. Mama had suffered and been sleepless, had gone through the same pain of my father's absence all over again. How had I been so heartless at the end of that summer to not see how I would hurt her?
People always told me I looked just like Mama. Our hair was nearly identical, and we shared pale skin and naivette. But I had become my father instead. The man who would share nothing with me. The man who made Mama cry sometimes, late at night, when she was hurting, knowing that her pain only brought her greater sadness. Her pain took her husband away.
She ran to me on her ruined legs, and I met her, throwing my arms about her and sobbing into her shoulder.
"Mama," I moaned, and she pressed her cold lips to my cheek, to my forehead. "Mama. I love you. I missed you so, so much."
She smiled for me, wide and sweet, as though a day hadn't passed. "I love you too, Popuri, my baby." She patted one hand on my back and a tear dropped from her cheek to my hair. "You've been gone a while."
"I didn't mean to, Mama," I whispered, and she hugged me tighter. "I'm sorry."
"You're back now," she smiled, her voice breaking, "You're back now and everything can be fine." She wiped one eye with the back of her hand as we pulled apart, still holding onto me with pale fingers. "Did you have fun while you were away, Popuri?"
"Ahh." I felt Kai and the others on the path behind me, and the malice there made me want to dive back into her arms and stay forever. "I..." I patted under my eyes with my hands and collected my former chicken girl self. "Every day has been an adventure, Mama." I smiled broadly, and my normally rosy cheeks, flush from crying, aided me in hiding from my mother.
She chuckled, her voice choked by tears. "I'm happy for you then, Popuri. I am so happy for my baby girl."
Then we were hugging again, and she was stroking my hair, like she used to do back when Dad first went away. I was reduced to a little girl crying in the arms of her mother, and instead of hating myself, I could only feel warm. There was nothing wrong with being a child for my Mama. As Jill had told me once, her blue eyes more despairing than usual, Adults still miss their mothers, even when they've chosen to go away.
"Will you come to my wedding, Mama?"
"I wouldn't miss it for the whole world."
The church looked towering and unfamiliar in the dark, an immense and inevitable doom which stabbed into the final fading red of the sky.
It was night. The next morning I would be married there, when the stained glass was beautiful instead of dark and jagged, when the steeple would reach up to the heavens and the morning sun. Everything would seem all right then, but right now I could see the deadly truth in the making. I touched the cold bricks on the side of the church, and I wondered at the time where Carter was, if he was preparing for the "special day". If he had any idea he would betray the Goddess by committing the holy act of matrimony...
"Popuri."
I whirled and there he was, staring at me in the rising moonlight, hands jammed into his pockets and chocolate eyes just staring at me.
"What are you doing out here so late?"
There was no one around. I didn't have to pretend then, I didn't have to be that cheerful chicken girl that no longer existed.
"What, Kai? Were you concerned?" There was a note of bitterness. I was the shattered pile of sea glass that was truly Popuri, with sharp ends rubbed in sand and dirt and
poison and strewn out on the beach for anyone to step on.
He was closer. How had I not seen him come so close, so fast?
"I need to talk to you."
"Th-there's nothing to talk about." My cursed voice gave away the huge part of me that hurt just to speak to him, just to look at him.
He chuckled dryly. "You're a bad actress." His hand raised to touch my hair, but fell back to his side as I opened my mouth to speak.
"I played the part perfectly, didn't I?"
He was in front of me then, his handsome face too close to bear, and I pushed myself around the corner of the white painted, peeling church, onto a small path I had never noticed before.
"I did what you wanted. I'm not dead, you win, you get your way! I'm putting on an act in front of all of the people who know me best." One tan arm reaching around me to stop me. "And for you, for you! You get off without a hitch but with plenty of benefits! You get my emotions, you get the Harvest Goddess, you get your family's approval! You keep Mineral Town in the dark about the whole deal!"
The emotions I had felt the night he drugged me were coming back, spurting up like lava through a weak earth.
I placed a trembling hand on his shoulder and pushed him away weakly, but it was far too easy for him to resist. He barely moved. One hand went to my shoulder to lock me into place.
I couldn't breathe enough, couldn't cool down with him standing there, couldn't let the lava settle into reasonable earth.
I bit his hand, but he didn't back away. Both my fists went out to hit him, but he caught my wrists and pushed them back down to my sides. My knee jerked up to collide with his stomach, but it was like nothing had happened.
He didn't care what I did. This was just another ripple in an endless sea, and it affected nothing.
He didn't care...
My forehead came to rest on his shoulder as I slumped. He tensed, bringing up his arms, but the fire had died down and left nothing but weak ashes which blew away soundlessly into the cold breeze. My arm twitched against his shoulder in one last attempt to wound him, but I couldn't. I never would be able to.
"...Popuri."
His beating pulse was strong against my ear. Another warmth bubbled up inside my heart and I cursed it with all my mind.
"What do you want?" My voice was torn. I finally succumbed, casting my red eyes away from his face. "You already have everything. What do you want now? Just take what's left. It shouldn't be hard."
His hand was warm on my face and I was so weak, too weak to bring my arm up and push him away...
"I lived there," he began slowly. He licked his dry lips and swallowed hard. "In that hole. For years, Popuri. I was raised there. Every day I woke up in the dark and never knew what light was." His fingers were loose and gentle on my arms, and I could have run. But he was holding me captive with the truth, and that was far better than my previous chains. "When I was thirteen, I was assigned here as a runaway child. They gave me the money for the beach house and told me to act however I wanted, but to fit in. So I... got comfortable. I let myself be who I wanted, let myself go crazy, and... Suddenly, it was all so bright. I mean, I was happy, and I didn't even know what happy meant at the time. And... there was you."
He stopped. His voice was unused to the story, shuddering and pausing, quiet or loud at all the wrong moments. But it was real.
"Why are you telling me this, Kai?"
"Because," his fingers gripped at his clothing, "I'm marrying you in several hours and I... and you... I didn't want it to be this way." His voice rose. "I can't let you die, I can't let you go, but I can't tie you to me. It's not... that's not the way for you to live, to live with-me. They've got their claws in me deep, and I was born in that dark. I can see the light, but I can't belong to it." He paused, breathing heavily. "Look at me." My eyes turned to meet his with a trembling fear. "You can't be a part of this. I never should have brought you to my home in the first place. If I had known..."
I wanted to think that he was lying to me. I wanted to believe that the world wouldn't be as cruel as to have him love me and then be unable to act on it. It would have been easy for me to continue in my bitter disbelief, because that's what logic and reason provided. No, the hardest thing at that very moment was to realize that he was telling the truth, and that even if he did want to protect me, to help me, to love me, it changed nothing. The Harvest Goddess would still be captured the next day, I would be forever tied to the organization, and we were helpless.
His gaze cast away from me.
"I asked you," I said quietly, and he nodded.
It had been my idea and my fault. I had been given control, and I let it slip through my fingers and shatter.
"My mistake," he replied, releasing my arms from his hold, "Was being unable to resist."
"What can I do?"
That caught his glazed vision. He whipped his attention to me, gripping my shoulders.
"You'll do nothing but escape."
I stiffened as my insides turned to ice. "The village... my family...!"
"Are the Harvest Goddess' to protect. They'll survive."
"Why hasn't she gotten rid of your family already, then?"
He paused in the dark. "Besides the Goddess' restrictions on communicating with humans, my family, as you've seen, is... Dangerous. Maria is a force to reckon with. That man's protectors are bound to have supernatural powers. And Caitlin... well..." He chuckled and shook his head. "Not only is she the most powerful, but she is also the most unstable. You've seen how unreasonable and wild she becomes. She likes you, because you're so innocent and honest. Imagine how she would be with someone she utterly despised."
I remembered how she had looked at that little boy. How she had called him a monster. How she had meant her every hiss and glare with every fiber of her being.
"Will they hurt Jill?"
Silence.
"She's not Jill anymore, Popuri. You need to stop thinking of her like that."
"But she IS Jill! Just because she... changed... doesn't mean she disappeared. She's still my best friend. I still love her like a sister."
"That is your mistake, Popuri. You love people too much, you open up your heart and shove it places where it doesn't belong! You're like a trusting little kid who'll jump into anybody's lap, even if they mean you harm! Why can't you just..."
My hands clenched into fists, but my voice went lethally soft. "Why can't I be cold and resistant like you? Why can't I mistreat and lie to somebody I love for months and never lose a wink of sleep? Why can't I grow up into a hard, heartless adult?" I wasn't crying, but I felt as if I should be. "Fine, then. I'll admit it! I don't want to grow up anymore!"
"Popuri-"
"I'm not leaving my family to die, and that's final. Don't pull any of your... your... tricks. Don't knock me out. I... I'll hurt you somehow. I'll make you feel it! I will find a way."
Even I knew the weakness in my threats. There were several fatal flaws in my plan.
"Then where have you got to go, Popuri? There's no way for us to escape all of this. You have to make a choice, right here, right now. It's either the Harvest Goddess or your family."
But I could see. It wasn't a decision of who would die and who would live. It was a question of who would die first. Just as the island and its people couldn't survive for long without its Goddess, the Goddess could not survive on a weed infested rock in the ocean. She would wither away to nothing without her followers, without their faith.
The answer came to me and slipped from my mouth without any time to be embarrassed.
"Marry me."
Kai expression was solemn. "So it's the Harvest Goddess you've chosen."
"No, no... I... um... Marry me tonight, Kai. Right now. Then... She won't come tomorrow. We can pretend we haven't been married, we can fake the ceremony, we can tell Carter something about wanting to be married tonight, and Jill will help us, I'm sure..." I had no doubt there was something wrong with the plan. Our undoing could not also be the way out.
His mouth dropped and he stared at me openly for a few moments before quiet understanding glinted into his eyes. I could swear he was almost... smirking... A sloping smile that touched one side of his face.
"We can... We can definitely do that. They don't even know I'm outside... I managed to get Caitlin to let me come see you alone. They- It'll work, I think. I-" a slight hesitation. "...I never thought I'd get to hear you ask me." He pushed his face into his arm and tugged on the front of his bandanna, turning away into a shadow of the moonlight.
I hadn't missed the tinge of red.
"Y-you..."
A hand behind his neck as his gaze wandered to an important branch in the swaying forest behind us.
He had blushed. I had affected him with nothing but words! I felt a giddy glow in my stomach until I realized the shadow Kai stood in was that of the steeple. This wasn't a child's imaginary play wedding. This wasn't a regular union. I was marrying Kai because there was no other way out.
I couldn't deny that I wanted to...
The gigantic wooden front door of the church creaked open. Kai jerked with stiff movements and, wrapping an arm about me and my mouth, pulled me further down the path.
"Hello?" Carter's sleepy voice rang out into the night. Kai immediately let me go and stood away from me. A yawn echoed quietly and the door began to slide shut.
It was our best chance. I laced Kai's fingers through mine and turned the corner of the old white building.
"Carter!"
"Hmm?" The young priest looked only mildly surprised to see us standing there.
"I-I... May we practice the wedding? Exactly like it'll be tomorrow? The real words and everything?"
He smiled lazily and nodded his head. "It is a bit late, but of course. You want everything to be perfect for the day."
I didn't want everything to be perfect. I just didn't want the world exploding and crumbling to my feet.
Carter ushered us in and pressed an gentle force to Kai's sleeve. His hand slowly let mine go, squeezing my fingers and touching them for what seemed like a million years. "Come along now. Haven't you seen a wedding before? The bride comes to you."
They were at the altar. I could have turned then, and walked out the great oak doors. I could have left.
But it was both a necessity and an urge that made me step forward.
Carter began to shuffle slowly back towards me. I waved him off. I could do it alone. I was more independent than I had ever been before.
It was not the ideal wedding of my childhood. My father wasn't leading me down the aisle. My mother wasn't there, my brother wasn't there. They didn't even know I was planning on getting married that night. They didn't know anything about me anymore.
"Then you'll take each others' hands," Carter instructed, and I brought myself to face him. One tan, calloused hand held my right, and his left palm opened to me. I placed my own in it.
"Now, here I'll say the sacred words... For tonight we'll just skip over them..."
"Please," Kai interrupted. "I want to be reminded of everything I'm promising."
"No surprises on the wedding day," Carter murmured, patting me on the shoulder.
"I'm sure the Harvest Goddess will know the difference." My own voice spoke out into the vast, dark ceiling. Jill. I need you. For your sake, and for everyone's. Make this real.
Carter began to murmur the phrases. Though his hands held the Goddess' holy book, his eyes closed in reverence as he spoke the words by heart.
I couldn't even listen to them. They meant so much, and I heard so little. I only saw the empty pews, the one lit candle on the altar. This was no wedding in a church. This was a funeral in the dark. Even the man marrying us didn't know there was a wedding. Why am I here?
"Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
Chocolate eyes rolled over me like a wave. His fingers tightened on mine as he shut his eyes, inhaling sharply. "I do."
"And do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
I loved him. I loved him so much. I didn't need a beautiful dream wedding to remember and feel that. Nothing but my heart needed to be present. I loved his smile and his cooking and his devotion and his teasing, his effort and the way he did anything to achieve his goals and yet his carefree attitude. I wanted to see those things every day of my life. I hadn't seen so many of them in far too long.
"...I do."
"Then of course, I would-"
"Say it, please." Kai's gaze never left my face.
Carter smiled warmly. "Impatient, are we? You'll have plenty of time tomorrow."
"...I want to hear it too," I whispered, and Carter's knowing smile faded from his white face, flickering in the small candlelight.
"Very well then." He cleared his throat. "I pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride."
Kai's nod to the preacher was confident, but as Carter turned away to shift the papers on the desk behind him, his grip on my fingers tightened. His expression was open and vulnerable for a fleeting second before he closed himself off.
"Popuri..." A pleading whisper so low the gentle preacher heard nothing. "This is your last chance to escape me. I will never be the right husband..."
"And then you'll lift her veil." Kai brushed one pink strand of hair from my face. He leaned in, eyes a flaming brown, as Carter moved the candle to in front of him and we plunged into darkness together. His lips hesitated just short of mine in the shifting shadow.
"I can disappear from your life forever after this. Just say the word. With me or without me, you will be happy." A warm breeze on my cheek. His eyes darkened, and he seemed to laugh to himself. "No, I... I'm lying. I promised I wouldn't do this to you, Popuri, I promised myself and you. But I've never been one to come through on my promises, have I?"
My family, my friends, were there with us as I considered in my heart just what I wanted and what I had to do. But as my lips caught his in a silent response, they faded from the pews, except for one. Kai leaned away from me at first in swift surprise, but within moments he was back, hands reaching up to my cheeks and sliding down to my neck, desperate, kissing me as though everything else in life led up to this one moment, a single breathless touch of our lips. Like nothing would ever be the same. This was the kiss I had imagined, this was the kiss I had wanted for years, and more.
A hot wind came through the closed windows and blew out the single candle in the church. Carter felt his way into his back rooms in his search for new matches, but his assuring calls telling us to stay still were unheard. My best friend glowed in the black, green and white and heaven rolled into one.
This kiss ended differently than the last. There was no forced separation from him, but a slow release. My hands were dropped as I was pulled gently to his shoulder. He rested his head on mine, watching our only spectator with a pained curiosity. He still smelled like pineapples and the ocean, but it was dimmed from miles of distance and time. The scent still lingered and curled in the smoke of the candle, and then my former sister opened her mouth.
"Thank you for doing something which should never need be done. You've saved a Goddess and an entire village. You're quite the hero, Popuri." The blue gaze moved away from me. "Making a sacrifice of your happiness for someone else's is something only an adult would do. You've really grown." She stood, green hair swirling about her in a perfect madness, but she seemed to lose some of the regal beauty. "And as Jill... I am so glad you love him, and he loves you. I... I just want to see you content, Popuri, and I'm sorry you had to suffer to gain it for yourself. You are mature in all the ways that count."
She took a step forward and in a blink her glow was in front of Kai.
"As for you... Treat her right, or I'll get you."
He chuckled into my hair and clutched me tighter.
"I don't doubt it for a minute, Miss Harvest Goddess."
"That's Mrs. to you." She grinned. "I've attended more than just your wedding recently."
"Breaking all the rules?" Surprise tinged his tone. I myself was shocked at their conversation... They had talked very little when Jill had been the town's farmer.
"I make them... I can twist them a little. And in your case, Kai, I will. You can stay here, if you'd like. At your precious beach house. You saved us as well. I'm very into forgiveness these days. I will never separate someone from their loved one." Her form flickered. "Never."
"I'm only leaving if she puts me on the boat herself," he murmured, "And even then only if she enlists Rick to carry me on board."
"Don't smile that way," the Goddess said quietly, "You look as if you're going to just fall over and die. A newlywed should appear much more joyful. Don't you agree, Popuri?"
Laughter bubbled up inside me and I released my husband to embrace my best friend. "I missed you," I laughed and cried all at once, "I missed you and everyone else. I was so worried... I was so helpless!"
"Ohhhh, Popuri," she sighed. She rubbed my back and ruffled my hair with all the warmth of Spring. "You are never helpless. You change people with that heart of yours. Look at this former criminal here. Look at that red haired woman who let him out to come see you. See me, standing here at your wedding, not being assaulted by a group of murderers." She almost laughed, and months of her as a farmer and as my best friend washed over me, so close to pulling me under.
"Speaking of that," Kai interrupted from behind me, "My family will be furious if the Harvest Goddess does not make an appearance. I assumed you'd take care of everything from there."
"Yes, surprise tactics always work the best. Because of your actions tonight, there is no holy ceremony being performed... Meaning I can spill a little blood if need be. They think I'll have to come peacefully... Far from it." Her expression was grim as her holy light flared. One white hand came to land on Kai's shoulder. "After this, Kai... You'd better live a content life, you understand? You are also a member of this town."
His mouth began to tremble. He turned away from the both of us. I reached out for him, but Jill patted my shoulder.
"Don't be concerned. He's overjoyed right now. Face us, you stubborn traveller, and stay in one spot."
He was smiling. Even in the dark, his cheeks were a bright red and his grin was wide.
"Now go take your wife home. Separate and don't be seen together. I suggest you act like nothing's changed."
I only had to act for a few hours longer. The relief swept over me, and as I closed my eyes tight, the only glow in the dark flashed from the room. The back door clicked open and Carter's shoes padded on the wooden floor. Kai put one arm around me and we walked with Carter from the church.
"Thank you, Carter." I had to say something. He had married us, even if he didn't know it.
"Have a good evening, Miss Chite," he replied serenely, and the great oak doors creaked shut. The church faded into the night as he went to sleep with the rest of the town.
Kai laughed.
"What is it?"
"You're not Miss Chite anymore."
I felt as if I had been slammed into.
Like my mother, like a billion women before me, I was a woman bound to a man through my heart and through the law. People could look at me and call me a child, but I might have one soon enough.
I stopped walking and Kai blinked from two steps ahead.
"I'm married." I inhaled and he moved close to me. I stared up at him and I saw reflected two red eyes brimming with tears and adoration. "To you."
His lips curled to one side in a teasing manner. "Regretting it already?"
I shook my head and laughed quietly, as a tan hand reached for mine.
In the dim streetlights, a figure moved.
Kai jerked his hand back and the traveler was gone, gone, gone, disappeared and out of my grasp in the short span of a moment.
Her red hair was an ugly brown in the dark. She stepped towards the two of us and Kai was in front of me.
"I found her." His voice was choppy, but he refused to be desperate.
Green eyes slid over us and up to the sky. Her fists clenched and Caitlin shook, but her expression remained soft and ready to be molded into any emotion.
"Cait-"
"Quiet. I know what you've done."
She was bleakly pensive.
"You would have been happy," she spoke quietly, a tired smile coming to her lips. "You would have been happy, and we still could have gotten that woman."
"My father would have never let us be happy. We would have been miserable." One hand went up to clutch at his face, his bandanna, himself. "You know that, Caitlin. Look at you."
Her lips trembled weakly into a sneer. "You think I can't tell how much I'm suffering? You think I don't feel it eating through my heart? You think that I want to destroy a whole town of innocent people?"
"Then why did you do it?" My own voice rang out. I couldn't see Caitlin's face, because Kai only stepped closer to me, a barrier. "And she's not a bad person either!"
"Who do you think," Caitlin began blandly, "Made your mother the way she is? Who do you think ruined my life? Who has control over everything- who has complete and utter power?"
"She didn't... make my mother sick," I said weakly, "That's impossible."
"Then who did, precisely? Don't you get it, Popuri? They're horrific beings who suck the life force from a town and use it to feed themselves. But are they punished? No! They have control over the town!"
"Well, what could you plan to do with her power?" Kai broke in. "You'd only go to destroy another town, to rule over another place! You are the same as them!"
Caitlin's eyes glowed black and became part of the night. A cloud passed over the faintly glowing moon.
"I know," she said finally, and her voice clutched at emotion but failed to keep it in. "I know what I am."
"Caitlin," I began softly.
"But no matter how much power I possess," she said, "I intend to die someday, and to leave no one behind in my stead. I will die honorably, and I will purge the world of my kind."
Then she walked into the night, away from us, down the cobbled path and into a deeper blackness, alone. I would never have the courage to be Caitlin.
"Who is she, Kai?"
Kai stared after her blurred figure.
"Some people aren't as lucky as you are, Popuri." The irony of his statement almost made me laugh, but the sight of the empty dark where Caitlin had been left me somber. "When magic happens, good or bad, not everybody comes out unscathed. Even the most beautiful of fairy tales has gruesome details that are often...skimmed over." He shrugged. "Caitlin was unlucky, and when she was weak, my father kidnapped her."
"She hates him," I murmured, and Kai just shook his head.
"That's an understatement." His expression shifted. "And yet, she fervently agrees with everything he does... Caitlin is absolutely insane. Sometimes, I feel even my father doesn't know what the future holds for us..."
"He doesn't dictate our future anymore."
Surprised, his eyes darted to me, and then back, closing as he let out another chuckle. I bit my lip at my complete bluntness.
"No, he doesn't. Thank the Harvest Goddess."
"They are married?"
"Happily."
The man sighed and looked old for a fleeting moment. He leaned back in the chair and stared at the torn calendar on the wall of the fading farm house.
"Excellent."
The green eyes glanced around the deserted room.
"It's been a while since she lived here."
The older man swept a finger along a dusty dresser.
"She's never coming back."
"Look," the redhead murmured absentmindedly, "The clock's stopped." She tapped her fingers lightly along her legs as if to make up for the lack of ticking.
"Quiet." Caitlin went still. "Did they suspect anything?"
She gave a wan smile. "Kai is quite happy to be free of us."
"I thought I raised him to be smarter."
"Rougher, perhaps."
They sat in silence.
"Do you think she will hate him someday?" His dark eyes were bleak. "I do not think he would be strong enough to survive that."
"He'd survive," Caitlin replied simply, "He'd survive because he's a fool and believes he has the ability to stop us."
"Then continue. As long as I still have my son, this mission will be finished. Caitlin, are you prepared?"
"Yes."
"And when this is all done?"
"I will die properly."
"Good. You have the thing I told you to retrieve during the ceremony?"
Caitlin held up a wriggling cloth bag, dripping wet and sprouting pathetic green shoots.
"Of course."
"Then we may continue."
A/N: Thank you for reading! I love everyone who's here! I hope you've enjoyed!
ekoaleko- The church of Mineral Town already has a wedding scheduled for tomorrow, but the day after that I'm sure Carter would be glad to marry you and the plot, haha. Thank you so much for following these stories. Your support is invaluable to me! I hope this chapter has made you happy!