Remembrances

EPILOGUE ONE

Lina woke slowly. Xelloss had stayed for dinner, and stayed the night. She was warm, and soooo comfortable, and her arms were wrapped around something soft and Mazoku-smelling. It wasn’t Xelloss. Wasn’t big enough. She opened her eyes. Dawn was just barely breaking, as if the sun were as reluctant to rise as she was. No Xelloss. Her wards told her he wasn’t anywhere in the house, which meant he was gone. It was a stuffed toy she held, a wolf, knit out of spun fur. It had black pearls for eyes and shark’s-teeth fangs, and it had Xelloss’s gloves pinned to it. There was a note inside a glove. She sat up, blinking until she was awake enough to remember how to read.

“For your bedposts.” She smiled a little.

Then something clicked. Her head was cold. She couldn’t see her hair, and usually it was always there, in the edges of her vision. Her face went blank, and her lips pressed into a thin, hard line.

She did not touch her head.

Instead, fury growing with every step, she stalked to the mirror.

“For mine,” was written on it in purple lipstick. Lina didn’t have purple lipstick. Lina also didn’t have a hair on her smooth, perfectly-shaven head. She stood there, simmering, until the entire house shook with it.

“GODS-FUCKING-DAMN YOU, XELLOSS!”

EPILOGUE TWO

Xelloss knelt before the Queen of the Deep, his staff laid on the floor by his side, and on the floor in front of him, below his bowed head, was a long, fat braid of hair so vibrant it looked alive, tied at both ends.

“My Lord, I beg of you a favor…”

Deep Sea Dolphin cocked her head to one side, and sent a servant after her lace-needles.

Author’s Notes: That's all she wrote. Thanks for reading!