Chapter 29: Epilogue Part 2 – Endless Horizon

Peace. It had supposedly settled as a concept into his miserable life, but he could not imagine this was what people had in mind when they thought about 'peace.' Vaati had, moments before, blinded his eyes to some of the most terrible things to have ever graced the internet. He needed a few minutes - no, more like days, weeks, a whole month maybe? - to get over what he had seen.

Or rather, read.

Now he'd seen some pretty horrible things in his lifetime, including nightmarish creatures most people today have never had to set their eyes on. He'd read some pretty horrifying things, too, considering he'd been around for some time. Nothing, though, compared to what he had just read. He was lying face first on his bed at the moment, lying like a piece of plank board or someone with a hangover trying to pretend they weren't actually alive to feel the horrible headache. Bates the cat was sitting right in the middle of his back as though he hoped that would get Vaati to at least sit up to yell at him (anything that would get him acting like he usually did), but even that didn't work today.

He was done for.

"Hahahaha! Dude you have to read this one!"

Vaati grimaced at the all too gleeful screams of Dark dying of laughter a few rooms down. Vaati still didn't budge, but managed to make some kind of groaning noise that probably translated into something similar to "Shut up."

Roughly about an hour ago, Dark had discovered something terrible.

It was called… fanfiction.

More specifically, fanfiction about him, the former Sorcerer of Winds. It was mostly thanks to that awful game Thistle had sent them, The Minish Cap or something like that, and was now available to the public. Sure, he couldn't lie when he said it was just a tiny bit awesome that other people thought he was the best thing ever, but at the same time…

So many of those so-called stories made him want to bash his face into a wall.

"I'm still serious about re-enacting a bunch of these and selling the pictures for profit!" Dark shouted at him from his room through a fit of chokes and wheezes.

"Mmmfff."

"I mean most of these are about you and Link, who I can definitely pull off since I am practically him, making out. Easy money."

"Mmmfff!" Vaati sat up abruptly from where he was lying down, sending a startled Bates flying off his back. "The hell Dark do you even understand what humiliation means?"

"If it means instant profit, absolutely not."

"Ugh."

Dark scrolled down the list of stories on the fanfiction website, specifically filtering for Vaati's name. He had hit so much gold; he could have months of fun and entertainment reading about things people made up about the guy rooming just a few dozen steps away from him. People were so creative.

And some of these plots, man, the fucking plots. Some of them were so bad they actually ended up being pretty great by the end of it.

Take for example this story about Vaati losing all of his magic and having to run around Hyrule with his buddy Link. The story started with a, what was that term again, a Mary Sue? Yeah, one of those, who somehow made all-powerful Vaati into not-so-powerful unfriendly twat, and was only there just to get the story going. Just really bad story writing in general. Oh and he was pretty sure the two were supposed to romance each other at the end, for no reason that made any sense except the fact that they were the two main characters of the story. He hadn't read the whole thing, but he was getting the hang of picking up on these crazy story patterns for the garbage he read on here.

And by garbage he meant pure money.

Or this other story where Vaati meets Link at a McDonalds and they fly to Japan to save the world or some dumb shit like that….

…?

Wait.

Dark squinted at the screen, leaning forward a little as he read the page more carefully. This story sounded a little too familiar to what had really happened with the Avilux Incident a while ago.

And come to think of it, the author had called it Avilux Ignis.

"Suuuspicious," he announced out loud as Bates slunked over to him. The cat jumped onto Dark's lap after Vaati had unceremoniously thrown him off the bed. "Check this out, Bates," Dark scratched the cat's head, "doesn't this sound familiar?"

The cat peered at the screen with Dark while the teen scrolled down the other list of stories. Another one caught his eye, this time called Occult Ascendancy. The plot for that one, too, sounded very, very familiar.

He clicked on the story and began to read the chapters, twenty nine in all. He flipped through it quickly, the events of the story so strikingly familiar. Even the conversations he'd had with various people were fairly accurate. A grin pulled across his face when he remembered the story sharing session they'd had with him, Vaati, and Zelda a while ago – the only person who could have done this was Zelda. If she hadn't written it, then she'd at least conspired with the author on it.

Sure enough, at the very bottom of the page, was a note from Zelda. Still with a grin on his face, he called out to Vaati one last time. "Someone you know wrote a message to you at the bottom of one of these," he snickered, "you are going to love this."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Cards again? You know that tarot reading is bogus."

Thistle looked up from his deck of cards as Thyme walked over and took a seat on the other side of the table, just like old times. They had moved in to a different house than the tiny, squished fortune shop they used to be in, but Thistle had somehow made it just as cluttered as before. There were weird objects and things most would call junk scattered everywhere in the room around them, and the table in the middle seemed like an island of temporary un-clutter. Although it would bother most people, Thyme found it comfortable in its own way. Thistle was still wearing his mask, perhaps out of habit, but lately (albeit on rare occasions) he could sometimes be seen walking around without it. "It's precisely because it's bogus that I'm reading Tarot cards now," he gave the same reply as before, a grin on his face and the irony not lost on either of them.

"Oh?" Thyme played along.

Thistle chuckled, flipping the cards in his hands slowly. "Now that magic is truly obsolete thanks to our friend Vaati, what's there to worry about?"

He picked out two cards, the last ones he had picked from the previous fortune, and stared at them wistfully. "The World and Death, hmm? So the fortune spoke true: to gain and lose everything, all at the same time." He put them back in the deck and shuffled it slowly as he leaned back in his chair.

Just as he put down to cards face down onto the table, the doorbell rang and the two of them perked up. Thistle gave a lazy nod towards Thyme, who had given him a questioning glance as though to ask him if he knew who it could be. "Could you get that for me? I'd actually invited someone over today."

Tilting her head briefly, questioningly, Thyme stood up from her seat and navigated her way across the room full of junk towards the door. When she opened the door, she immediately tensed when she recognized who it was. It was a man in an impeccably sharp suit that was accented with a purple tie. He walked himself in without waiting for Thyme to step aside. The only reason he didn't get very far was because all of the junk that was in the middle of the path towards the table proved to be a formidable obstacle.

"Hello, erm, Mr. … Thistle?"

"Just Thistle, Hal," Thistle called over cheerfully from behind the table.

"It's Dugal."

"Whatever you prefer. I was only trying to start things on friendly terms."

Thyme, who was used to the clutter by now, walked past Dugal curtly while the other man tried not to trip as he made his slow way over. "I am here only on business terms."

"Thistle, what is he doing here?" Thyme hissed between her teeth as soon as she got close enough to the former wizzrobe. She shot a cold glare when Dugal finally made it over and took a seat next to her, clearly making it known that she didn't appreciate his unexpected visit. After all, Dugal had every reason to hold a grudge against them and therefore was not someone they could trust. Even if he didn't have a grudge he wasn't someone anyone should trust.

"Oh please, Thyme, sit down. There's no animosity between us at all! Just two pleasant gentlemen trying to strike a mutually beneficial deal," a brief glint appeared in Thistle's eyes as he said the last few words.

Dugal, meanwhile was looking around the messy room in disgust. He kicked away a crumpled, discarded piece of paper away from where he was sitting, and then rested his hands in front of his face, steepled, with an expression that made him look like a hawk trying to decide which lizard to disembowel. "Yes, a deal. If," his eyes steeled behind his glasses, "you really have what I want."

"It was all his idea," Thistle explained happily while Thyme continued to watch Dugal like a cougar mother. "I still have some dirt on dozens of very important people from back when I was the standing authority on everything. We figured it would give us something to do when we're bored if we could, you know, blackmail them silly."

"As in profit," Dugal explained to Thyme.

"No, as in fun."

"… Yes, as in fun," Dugal corrected himself, in a flat tone of voice that sounded like 'fun' meant he was going to have to jump in a pool of acid.

"Thistle, are you crazy?!"

"No one is not crazy, dear Thyme."

"You're going to get yourself killed, you know that?" Thyme shouted angrily. She almost threw something at him. At both of them. "What if they send hit men after you?!"

"But I have hit men of my own now," Thistle countered, pointing proudly at Dugal who was staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was a bad idea for other reasons.

"You don't even have a good reason for doing this, do you?"

"I'm. Bored!"

"Augghhhh!" Thyme sunk down in her seat and buried her face in her hands, aggravated.

Mercifully, the buzz of a vibrating phone distracted everyone from the current conversation. With a frown, Dugal reached down into his pants pocket and took out his buzzing phone. "Excuse me," he stood up and walked a few feet away to take the call. The man's left eyebrow arched when the voice was from a person he never would have expected. "Mr. Engst."

"Hey! You have Thistle's contact information, don't you? Like a phone number or address?"

"Mr. Engst, why are you calling me about this?" Dugal frowned.

Vaati's words were rushed, like he was agitated. "I need to talk to him now. Now. Just give me a phone number – I know you have it! – and we'll never talk aga-"

Dugal took the phone away from his ear, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. With a slight grin on his face, but one so small like he was trying not to look too amused, he wordlessly handed his phone over to Thistle.

"Eh?" The former wizzrobe looked at him questioningly.

"Just take it."

Inquisitively, he carefully took the phone from Dugal and put it by his ear. "Hello?"

There was a shocked pause from the other end. All Thistle could hear for a while was some slightly static blubbering. "Sounds like he drowned," Thistle announced.

The voice on the other end recovered. "Din's fire both of you are conspiring together now?" Vaati asked, hushed. His voice grew loud enough that the others in the room could hear him through the phone. "I knew it. I knew it!"

"Doubt it," Dugal said aside.

"I'm going to get you, Thistle! You ruined my life and – "

"You did that to yourself, Vaati. Come on now," Thistle quipped.

"- and I am going to end you for good this time and – "

"Oh, did you see all of those fans of yours? Their stories are pretty fantastic, I highly recommend them!"

Vaati's voice shook, then exploded. "I am going to end you! AND YOU TOO DUGAL!" There was a click, and then silence. Thistle stared back at the now silent phone sadly, rubbing the side of his head while the ringing in his ears went away. Behind him, Dugal had his back turned to them with his shoulders shaking, trying to suppress laughter.

"I think," Thistle concluded after a few seconds, "he broke."

Thyme rolled her eyes. "Uh huh."

They all gathered around at the table again, now that all distractions were gone. Thistle played with the Tarot cards in his hands as he peered over at Dugal crookedly. "At any rate, you do have a plan, I assume? I have the information, you have the resources. I think fifty-fifty sounds about fair."

"Thistle…" Thyme groaned.

"It will depend on just what kind of information you really have access to."

"Oh, then I assure you I have quite a lot. Now my question is -"

"Thistle..." Thyme repeated.

"- how reliable are you?"

"That's not really a question I appreciate you asking, Mr. … Sir."

"Thistle," Thyme tapped him on the hand, finally getting his attention. Her lips drooped downwards disapprovingly. "You're not going to stop, are you," her question came out as a statement.

Thistle laughed. "Of course not!" Then, he perked up like he'd remembered to do something, and flipped over the two cards he had placed on the table earlier. "Actually before we talk about logistics, how about I finish this fortune?"

The first two cards lay flat on the table. They were identical, each with a picture of a robed man holding some kind of wand. The only difference was that they were flipped from each other, so that one was right side up and the other was upside down.

"Keke, ohh, this is going to be another good one, I can tell," Thistle cackled. "The Magician and The Reversed Magician. Thyme, dear, you remember those two, don't you?"

But Thyme wasn't really looking at the cards anymore. Instead, she had her head in her hands tiredly. She gave a heavy sigh, defeated. "Here we go again…"

From Zelda to Vaati: If you've seen this story, you've seen this website. You must be so proud.

fleets: If you are feeling unhappy and cheated out of time you spent reading the previous twenty-something chapters at this moment, then I am so sorry I failed you. I cannot go back and rewrite this ending: it's like once seen, you can't unsee. I also wouldn't know how to add more things to make the execution any better, so if I failed you, then there is not much I can do at this point except to apologize profusely.

And this is why endings make me so freaking nervous.

I guess this will be the last time I do a final-chapter-comments? Yeah, so, this is actually one of my few stories where THERE ARE NO CASUALTIES. At least, casualties of the characters we actually care about... I wanted a happy ending for a change. Or as close to happy as I am ever going to get. I had the whole renegade wizzrobe idea since back when I was writing Rend, and I'm happy I was finally able to throw that out there, at the very end of OA. What makes them renegades? Cause they're not actually wizzrobes :P So he's not going to die just yet!

As for the last bit on Zelda, I didn't want to forget about her either. I figured it was a disservice if she wasn't at least mentioned one more time since she played a fairly big role in this story's predecessor. And she helped figure out where Thistle was, so yeah, she's kinda important.

I also did say I was writing ThistlexThyme? That is probably as fluffy as I will EVER GET. Now watch me break that disclaimer and write something fluffier, but we will see.

Did I have too much fun referencing fanfiction dot net? Yes. Yes I did. This place is both terrible and awesome at the same time and I love it.

On a final note, this is really the end. The End. One of the reasons why it must end here (even though it seems like I have more stories to tell) is because Vaati has changed too much over the course of this series. I assume that is the reason why most of you are even here; because of him. He's not the sorcerer we used to know, the one from FS, FSA, and TMC. I mean, I guess that can be considered a good thing, since you don't want stagnant, unchanging characters in a story, but at the same time I feel he is becoming more and more unrecognizable as Vaati. He grew up. The End. He'll do more growing up, probably, and learn a lesson or two after this story, but for the most part he is no longer the asshat from TMC that I used to write about. I can no longer write about him in this story. Vaati is effectively dead. Vaati is no longer Vaati.

If you've made it THIS far, congratulations, because you have stuck with me since 2010. It is now 2013. Yeah, isn't that crazy? Over 100,000 words later, this story is finally complete, and I could not have done it without everyone's super duper awesome support. I know, I know, that sounds like such an empty phrase, like another 'thing to say at the end,' but I really mean it! What amazes me even more, for those of you who made it this far and are reading these words right now, is the fact that you guys stuck with this even though this story practically got taken over by a large cast of OCs. It's difficult to even call this fanfiction anymore, since I didn't write a whole lot about the LoZ aspect except for tidbits here and there. And yet some of you still stuck by. I cannot thank you guys enough for that awesome, awesome support. I also loved getting to talk to some of you (mostly through reviews and review responses on the chapter pages) about the story and LoZ in general, and also those silent readers who communicated with something kind of like Morse code through the visitor hit counts.

I don't know how I can even write a thank you/goodbye that will measure up to everything you've done for this story. My plan is to continue writing and finishing WIR (When I Return), which is a different genre than what I have been writing these past few years (Romance, opposed to Adventure/General). I hope to still see some of you around, and if not, then I hope you enjoyed what I had to offer with the Legend 2012/3 stories :)

If you still want to talk to me afterwards, please don't hesitate to either contact me via PM on this website or go post something on my wall (or message me) at my deviantart account. I admit I do take a while to respond sometimes, but I try my best to get back to replies :)