The Sleeping Girl

Epilogue: Three Months Later

Chloe hasn't been moved, but at least one person visits her everyday. I personally make sure that I go at least twice a week. Usually, I just sit there, and somehow, it always feels just so right. I don't think I'll ever tire of that feeling.

The rest of the school day passes in a blur. I'm convinced that my algebra teacher doesn't actually know English, just math. Except for at the end of class when she gives us a trillion math problems to do for homework, which I know will take me hours, even if everyone else only take around forty minutes. Still, I'm pretty proud of myself for learning everything so quickly. The education system nowadays is different than it was five hundred years ago, that much is certain.

***
After school, Carmi drops Mike and myself off at headquarters. Since their house is so close, walking distance really, and his parents are here so after conferring with with Amanda, he and Carmi go back to headquarters instead of their house after school quite often. Our whole society really is a family.

"Hungry?" asks Mike, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a banana. That's another thing, I've discovered that Amanda really has a thing for healthy food. With actually isn't that different from what I used to eat. It didn't bother me, until school started, also known as food trading central.

"Nah, I'm good," I say, throwing my backpack down. I've learned to love weekends, because I can put all my homework off. "You wanna go knife throwing? I'm really getting it down."

"Oh gosh, no," he says. "I know you're getting it down, that's why it's so humiliating when you always beat me."

I laugh. "That's why it's fun. Come on, Mike."

He stares at me, but doesn't last more than five seconds before he breaks out laughing. It turns out I can stare down anyone. "Fine. Just let me finish this banana."

"Alright! I'll go grab some knives," I say. He finishes his snack and we head out into the woods.

Training has been much different from what it used to be. Amanda gives us a lot of liberty with what we want to do, which is nice. Carmela and I go fencing quite often, to practice with swords, and we're actually quite evenly matched. I think this makes her happy that there's finally someone who can challenge her skill with a sword, and her being happy makes me happy.

Target practice is my second favorite, and Mike's favorite, be it with knives, or guns, anything works. We never did this five hundred years ago, so my aim was terrible at first, but I'm quickly improving.

Carmela tried to instil her love of a sword into Peyton, but she really wasn't that much into it. She was more fascinated with spellcasting. That's another thing I discovered, my power with spellcasting. It was a growth spell that turned my dagger into a sword, a spell that Ebony used to make the dark cloud in the hospital room that day.

To Carmi's delight though, Isabelle loved using swords especially the sabre. A little while after the fight, I learned that Isabelle and Chloe were both on our high school's color guard team, which was how they became such good friends. It also explained why Chloe was able to so easily catch the sword Carmela tossed at her while facing off the faery, she was trained to catch sabres, and rifles too.

The concept of a color guard team is fascinating to me. It most certainly was not around five hundred years ago. The idea of a group of girls who spin and toss weapons is crazy, but I guess the fight hasn't gone out of the world.

When Iz saw that I was interested, she tried to convince me to join, but I declined. I've already seen how much of her time it takes up, and know that I could never spare that much time.

When Amanda heard that Isabelle was trying to get me to join color guard, she encouraged me to join another group. I learned that Peyton is plays some sports as well as the flute, and at first I was intrigued, but eventually, I decided not to, again. I would rather spend my time fighting, and eventually, they all understood that.

"Okay," says Mike, as we stop. "Here we are. I'm ready to be humiliated."

I laugh slightly. "Oh yes, get ready for it's coming." Grabbing the first knife, I exhale and send the blade flying. It spirals through the air before landing dead in the center of a target carved out of a tree thirty meters away.

Mike grimaces slightly and pulls out his own knife. It flies true at first, before dipping down, landing several inches below mine.

"That's one for me, and none for you," I say, grinning. "Shall we move back."

"As you wish," he says, bowing mockingly. I punch him lightly on the shoulder.

The day afternoon passes quickly, and I've hardly realized that time has passed until the sun dips below the horizon, leaving us in the dusk.

"Time to start heading back," he says.

"Yes," I agree. "Totally lost track of time there."

"Happens all the time."

The two of us start strolling back, the path getting darker and darker and harder to see. Still though, it's no problem, I know it by heart after coming out time and time again.

I can see light ahead and know that we're nearing the edge of the woods, and speed up my walking. Wearing nothing but a tee and pair of shorts that I wore to school today, I start to shiver, and hurry back so I can get inside the warmer house soon.

Suddenly, right as we're leaving the cover of the leaves, my foot catches on something and before I know it, the ground is rushing to meet me. I throw out my hands to break my fall, and end up smacking my palms on the sharp little rocks and twigs on the ground. The fall also pressures my right arm, and I roll over onto my back.

I start to my feet, and realize that Mike is right there. He holds out his hand and I grasp it gratefully. He pulls me up. I wince slightly on the increased pressure on my stinging palms.

"Let me see," he says.

"It's fine," I say, and true to my word, I see the little cuts heal right before our very eyes.

He says something to himself.

"What was that?" I ask.

"It's amazing," he says. "I've seen it before but it still never fails to amaze me. You're amazing, Kiki."

I blush slightly and look up at him. His eyes are in awe, full of wonder. I look around for what he could be looking out, but find nothing. Returning my eyes to him, I see that he hasn't moved. He's looking at me.

"Kiki-" he starts to say, but I cut him off before he can continue, standing up on tiptoes and pressing my lips to his.

Closing my eyes, I think to myself, that this is the best possible life that anyone could wish for, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

~THE END~

A/N: And just like that, fourteen months after joining wattpad, it's finally over. If you're reading this, thank you sooooo much. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I loved writing about Keela and friends. Please let me know what you thought of it in the comments ;)

Second, I've been working on another story lately and will be publishing it soon, probably this weekend. I would love it if you could check it out. You might have noticed that I've been updating weekly for the past few weeks, and I'm sorry that my updating schedule used to be so unpredictable, but I'm trying to have frequent, regular updates from now on, so please please read :) 

Finally, I'd like to give a huge shout out to fairylore1. She was my first and loyalist reader, and motivated me to keep writing when I had next to no reads. She has an amazing story that you all should check out!

xoxo, wisteria