CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
end of part 2/book 2
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THE SCRAPE OF HER PEN against notebook paper was interrupted by a repetitive tapping. She unfolded her legs and slipped off of her bed to investigate, but she already had a theory on what was waiting for her once she pulled back the curtains.
A noise that was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh was released when she caught sight of Kai's face smushed against the window. He looked how he usually did: absolutely ridiculous. With his bent nose, crossed eyes, and his smeared mouth fogging the glass, he had successfully brought forth unsolicited happiness.
Fingers undo the latch and push up the windowpane. The rattle of the rain had previously faded into the background, but now with the window open the sound was amplified and rolled in along with the splatter of droplets.
He was completely soaked. He stepped inside with squeaking shoes, dark clothes clinging to his skin, and wet hair sticking to his forehead. Mila watched him enter with lifted eyebrows and spaced lips, not quite knowing where to start with his unexpected arrival.
"Whew. It's really coming down out there." He shook himself like a drenched dog, blowing out air in a way that flapped his lips and produced a comical sound.
"Why didn't you use the door?"
"I wanted the full boyfriend experience. Sneaking into your bedroom late at night through the window. Getting to see you in a skimpy nightgown." Kai peels off his coat and throws it onto her desk chair after giving her a through but quick scan. "You're not following through on your part."
"Sorry. All my slutty sleepwear is in the wash," Mila resorted, shrugging.
She took a brief glance at herself through the mirror attached to her dresser. She saw the spaghetti straps of her tank top overlap the straps of her bra. Baggy sweatpants and fluffy ankle socks made up the rest of her outfit.
The squelching noise of Kai taking off his shoes reverberated around the room while she returned back to her spot. A spiral notebook was flipped open, the pages filled with bullet points and her handwriting. A textbook was also laid out, and her eyes only stopped scanning the paragraphs whenever there was a highlighted, bold word. Writing down vocabulary terms had gotten a bit tedious but it seemed to be the only way that she could learn them.
"You're forgiven, I guess," Kai responded. A yawn followed his reply; he stretched his arms and shuffled across the room. "I still have some clothes here, right?"
"Yeah. Third drawer," Mila answered without looking up.
"Sorry I didn't check in that much today. I spent most of the day with Damon. It went how it usually went. I was my genius and awesome self and he got angry and threw me against the wall. Talk about anger issues. Definitely needs to go to a meeting. I mean, for anger management. Not for his drinking. Although, now that I think about it, he uses a bourbon bottle like a binky. His tantrums are starting to make a little more sense now. Anywho, looks like we're going to rescue Mama Salvatore from the 1903 prison world tomorrow."
"You texted me 72 times today, Kai. During class may I add. If your updates mixed in with your requests for nudes didn't fill me in enough, Elena did. She explained what Damon wants to do. I understand why they're going, but why are you going?" She sighed out. She blinked a few times at her work before her focus shifted completely towards Kai.
His bare back was to her as he grabbed a few items out of the drawer. She studied how his shoulder blades moved in unison with the subtle ripples of his muscles. His shoulders were broad, connecting to arms that were more defined than she thought. All of the dips along his smooth skin were such an easy trail for her now alert eyes to follow.
"Because they need my help. Prison worlds are my forte."
"Bonnie can do the spell without you if you give her the ascendant."
"Yeah, but I'm trying to earn their trust. You know, proving to them I'm not going to kill them in their sleep." Kai spins around, unfolding a dry t-shirt he had gotten from the dresser. His jeans were bundled down at his ankles, and he fumbled with kicking them off, but soon they were strung over the chair, too. "Actually, never mind. Bad example. Killing people in their sleep is so anticlimactic. They're all like 'oh, no he's attacking me with a pillow' for a few seconds and then they die and look like they're back to sleeping."
The high octave of his voice as he imitated the hypothetical victim didn't provoke any sort of reaction from her. Kai noticed that it seemed as if she hadn't been listening to him at all. He almost frowned out of confusion, but then it clicked why she was staring at him so incessantly with a blank expression.
He abandoned the task of throwing on a shirt despite the fact he was still cold. He just finished yanking up a pair of gray sweatpants, a faint smirk tugging at his lips, and started his way towards her.
"You okay, Mila? You seem... distracted." His drawn out words do not break her out of her daze.
Mila hums in response. Her hand still absentmindedly moves along the notebook paper, but her eyes are trained on him — his chest specifically. She spent a lot of time staring at him, but she had never been so obvious about it. Every look, every touch, every interaction was always so carefully executed. And now, in the warm and comfortable atmosphere of her bedroom, her resolve had floated away to join the dark clouds plaguing the sky.
He squats down by the edge of bed, elbows digging into the mattress while he leans towards her. "You're ogling me like a cartoon character."
"I think you're over exaggerating." Mila clears her throat, shifting her gaze from his abdomen to his eyes, which pulled her into another trance.
"You wrote the same word seven times."
She peered down at the page, pouting that his observation was indeed true. A hand cups her jaw, turning her head to face him again.
"You wanna kiss me," he says in a singsong tone, and it almost makes her laugh.
"At the moment, I'd rather lick you," she murmurs. The soft patter of her pen rolling around the expanse of the notebook paper is the only prominent noise besides their low voices.
"Where?" Kai presses, the timbre of his voice deeper than before.
"Where do you think?"
He squints at her. "You're always teasing me. You're the only one I let do that. Anyone else, I'd set them on fire."
Mila chuckles, twisting her body to set her books on the end table. "I thought you were on the mend."
"An occasional slip up never hurt anybody." He plops down on the mattress, making the bed bounce. "Well, it will hurt people but oh well. Sucks for them, right?"
She falls back until her head finds the stacked pillows leaning against the headboard. Her legs stretch out to the bottom of the bed where Kai was lying on his side. He held himself up with one elbow, his palm pressed to his cheek, and let her feet be propped up by his hip.
Mila watches how his hand trails along her ankle. Fingertips brush softly against her skin like figureskates along unblemished ice. Arch after arch, line after line, he brought on a calmness. She sunk into the moment like their bodies sunk into the mattress.
It was times like this where he felt entirely unreal. At the foot of the bed, with wet hair curling slightly around the edges of his face, Kai seemed like some far-fetched fantasy.
Mila never classified herself as a romantic; she left the epic loves and the havoc they entailed to her friends. But gazing down at Kai now, sleepy-eyed and blissfully content, she couldn't imagine a life without him.
"Seriously, though. You don't need to go with Damon to the prison world. You don't need to prove anything. You're doing just fine now." She drifted back to the subject they were disagreeing on. His steely blue eyes flicker back up to look at her earnest face.
Kai shook his head. "No, it's not enough. Clearly, since no one trusts me."
"I trust you," Mila replies, almost cutting him off before he finished his sentence.
"Then, why won't you let me kiss you? Get too close to you?" His questions take her aback; mostly because she didn't have a clear answer to them. "You keep me at a distance. I thought at first it was because you wanted to take things slow but now... I see it. The hesitation. You don't want me close because you don't trust me."
Her mouth opens to respond, but there's so many things she wants to point out, claims she wants to deny, that they get stuck in her throat. Kai continues before she can gather herself.
"No, don't. It's okay. I know I have a lot to make up for. I'm glad to even have you in my life at all. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. You said you didn't understand, and if you're going to take away anything from why I'm going, it's that I'm not just doing it for me. I'm doing it for us. For wherever our relationship goes. You need to be able to trust me and doing this, going on a mission with your friends to correct one of many wrongs my coven is responsible for, is a step in that direction."
"What if something happens? What if something goes wrong and you guys get stuck there?"
"You were okay with just Damon and Bonnie going. But if I go, too, it's too much of a risk?"
"Yes, because that's different. They know what they're doing."
"And I don't?"
"It's just different, Kai. It's different. And it's not because I don't trust you like you think. Of course I trust you. You think you would be here in my room, in my bed, if I didn't?"
"Then, what is it, Mila? What's the problem?"
The rush of sentences thrown back and forth between them had dissipated after this question. Mila remains silent. But this time, it's not because she has no answer. It's because she's afraid to speak it.
Kai's eyes swell with fear. He swallows in an attempt to soothe his constricted throat. "Do you... not have any feelings for me?"
"Kai, no. I do. I have a lot feelings for you."
"Just not enough, right?"
The door opening interrupts the conversation that was poisoning everything they worked so hard to build. Their necks don't immediately bend to see who it is. They take a lengthened moment to stare at each other, trying to make sense out of everything said.
"Why didn't he use the front door?" Evan repeats Mila's earlier question, barging in in his pajamas and with a gallon of ice cream tucked under his arm. Finding a shirtless boy strewn across your daughter's bed was a red flag, but since he had an obvious soft spot for Kai, he wasn't freaking out. Plus, getting a midnight snack had put him in a good mood.
"Don't worry. I'm going to go." Kai slides off the bed, retrieving the dry shirt he was going to put on earlier.
"No." Mila sits up, her chest tight. "Don't go. Please stay."
"If he's staying, he's crashing on the couch. I'm not that cool of a dad, and I definitely won't be that cool of a grandad, if you get my gist," her father added, prodding his spoon into the melting ice cream.
"Dad, can you give us a minute?"
"Depends. Are you two going to fool around?"
"Are you going to tell Mom that you're cheating on your diet?"
Evan nodded in defeat. "You got three minutes."
Once he closes the door behind him, Mila moves to approach Kai. He was picking up his shoes, ready to put the slippery rubber back on his feet. She puts her hands over his, stopping him.
"Kai, listen to me. I want you to stay," she tells him. Her genuine tone matches the warmth found in her immersive eyes.
He relents to her like he always does. His fingers curl around her wrist. He can feel her pulse. And his heartbeat, rapid from distress, calms to beat in time with her own.
"I'm going with Damon and Bonnie tomorrow," he states.
"Okay. Fine. Just stay the night here. Please. It's still storming outside," she says, and in her own way, demonstrates what she had been trying to all night: that she cares.
"Okay. I will," Kai agrees, knowing there is no other place he'd rather be.
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ARMS INTERLACED, THEY begin to walk down the aisle. Lizzie and MG walked down first, followed by Damon and Elena. Damon wasn't overwhelmed with glee to be Kai's appointed best man, but Lizzie was determined to keep the numbers even. It didn't help that Kai had talked his ear off up until the bridal chorus had started playing.
Although silent, he was still nervous as the melody rung through the crisp air. Kai was terrified, actually, fidgeting in place at the alter. The seconds slowed. The music became muffled. The audience that sat before him was just a blurry backdrop.
His prior excitement was gone. And he was suddenly scared of everything and everyone he couldn't control. Because even though he wasn't the problem anymore, there were countless of others out there. The kind that take him away from her and her away from him. And how could anyone live like that? With so much to lose? With so much that could be taken away? He had gotten answers to those questions the instant he saw her coming towards him.
Mila rounded the corner with Evan at her side and the axis of his world was tilted back into place. Her flattering white gown, glittering accessories, and all of the dazzling decorations of the scenery were hazy details of a view that had its lens focused on her ethereal face.
Life had already taken so much from him. Plagued him with terror after terror. Distorted him into a maniacal villain. But out of all that tragedy, out of all that misfortune, he had stumbled upon this. Mila was put in his path and changed everything. She defied the very powers of the universe that set out to curse him to a cruel fate. And being stunned by her angelic form as she walked down the aisle towards him, reminded him that there was nothing they couldn't take on together.
Mila had been anxious herself. The instant she stepped out under the twinkling lights and bathed in the enriching atmosphere of a spring evening, she felt overwhelmed. But it wasn't a treacherous reaction. It did not evoke panic and doubts. It just felt like everything was catching up to her. Every emotion repressed, every word that never made it out of her thoughts, and every instinct to reach out instead standing still had returned to be heard. To be acted upon. To finally be embraced. And she communicated all of it, all of that bottled up sentiment and love, with one riveting look.
She took Kai's offered hand after granting her father a kiss on his cheek. Evan slid into an empty seat in the front row next to his wife and Mila took the final step forward.
Watery eyes and close-lipped smiles were mirrored features while they stood in front of each other. Hands were woven together, and she squeezed his, almost unable to believe that they were really here. That they had made it this far.
"You are so beautiful," Kai murmured. His mesmerization branched through his entire expression.
Under his intense gaze, Mila's heart swelled with everything that declared her human. "You don't look half bad yourself."
"Uh, hello! Welcome everyone!" Josie's voice broke through the silence. They both glanced over to see her right beside them, standing where a pastor was supposed to be, but obviously there had been a change of plans. Josie took a deep breath, relying on what she's seen in movies and what she googled to officiate this wedding. "So... we are gathered here today to join Malachai Bartholomew Parker and Camila Maren Ramone in holy matrimony. The couple has prepared their own vo-"
Kai raises a hand to cut her off. "Woah, hold up. Just a sec. Your real name is Camila?" He stares at Mila accusingly, mouth agape. "All those times you called me Malachai to get on my nerves when you don't go by your full name, either!"
Her grin widens and she shakes her head at his dramatic outburst. A few guests had stifled giggles, and Josie was biting her lip to contain a smile of her own.
"Oh my god. This whole relationship is a lie. How did you manage to keep that from me? I don't know whether to be offended or impressed."
"What can I say? You're losing your touch." Fondly, like her spoken words, Mila straightens his tie. She gives him one more amused glance before she turns back to their niece. "Carry on."
Josie cleared her throat. "Okay. As I was saying, the two have prepared their own vows. Kai?"
Kai scoffs but still reaches inside his jacket to pull out folded pieces of paper. When he peers over at her again, it's clear that his annoyance was lighthearted and that he was still so irrevocably ready to marry her.
"This is a letter from sixteen years ago. I wrote this when I was struggling with my emotions and feeling really bad about myself and all of the mistakes I made. I heard online that writing an apology letter and burning it is supposed to give you closure. But I didn't do the burning part. And I didn't really get any closure then, either. But I think what I wrote covers my vows," he announces to everyone, but his eyes stay on her radiant face until he goes to read what's on the pages.
"Dear Mila, I know you have already accepted my apology, but I have absolutely nothing figured out right now. So I figured there's probably going to be more that I'll need to say sorry for. So here it goes:
"I'm sorry that I made Damon tell me all about you when we were stuck in the prison world just in case I needed to use it against him.
"I'm sorry that I thought hearing a few stories about you would ever prepare me for who exactly you are. Which is something so beautifully relentless I still can't wrap my head around it now.
"I'm sorry I ran out the night we met. It terrified me how much I wanted to stay.
"I'm sorry I treated you like you were no different from everyone else when I knew even before the merge that you were.
"I'm sorry for how much I know I'll end up touching your face. Especially when you smile. You have the cutest dimples.
"I'm sorry that I ever believed what I'm feeling right now was overrated. It's not. Not even a little bit. Even though sometimes I can't breathe around you. It's okay. My lungs can handle it. I can handle it. I actually feel like I can handle anything because of you. That's never happened before, and I don't want it to ever stop because I think I'd be lost without it. I'd be lost without you."
By the time he finished reciting the letter, a few tears had escaped her waterline and streaked down her cheeks. Kai's lip twitches, almost offering up another heartfelt smile, as he reaches over to gently brush them away.
"So, what I want you to take from that, is that I vow to never be so clueless again. I vow to know better. I vow to appreciate you every day. I vow to never forget how special and wonderful and... surprising you are," he tells her, never averting his focus from her softened eyes and their emotional gleam. "I vow to love you like you deserve."
He places the silver wedding band that Damon had handed him on her finger. Mila senses the cool metal slide right into place next to her engagement ring, light in weight but heavy in meaning. She pinches his ring to be given in her other hand, under the influence of that breathless feeling Kai spoke of.
"Mila." Josie gestures for her to go next, and her vows are passed from Lizzie to Elena to end up in her grasp. Mila takes a much needed deep breath before she begins.
"Kai, I hate that you are probably going to upstage anything I come up with. Because no matter what, you always surprise me. I guess I'll finally admit you're romantic. I can already hear your ego inflating, but I'm not done admitting things.
"I have so much to say. A thousand different things are running through my mind right now. I should have said them all before but I never did because I was afraid of being too vulnerable, which seems so ridiculous now. You're the most accepting person I know. You've never judged me. You've never made me feel bad about myself, and I don't think a lot of people can say that in a relationship," Mila reads her written words off the page, not noticing how impactful they are as Kai takes them. He stares at her intently, hanging onto to every syllable, every smooth glide of her voice. He allows himself to believe in the good parts of himself.
"You're also never boring. We always have fun together, even when we are just staying in for the night.
"That leads me to how you're so effortlessly funny. You don't even have to try. You just have to be yourself and I love you the most when you're being true to who you are. Not following a path others set for you, not living up to anyone's expectations except your own. You being your own amazing, chaotic, infuriating, devious self.
"I knew I wanted to kiss you from the moment we met. I knew I wanted to be with you when you suddenly left and nothing felt right after. I knew you were worth getting hurt for.
"You inspired me to take my own risks and I'm happy with where it's gotten me. I'm here. With you. Where I belong — where I've always belonged." She pauses to glance up at him, magnifying the clarity of her speech. Eyebrows pressed inward and lips parted in awe, he is consumed by her unconditional love.
"I don't regret a second we've spent together and I know I'm not going to regret committing to many more. You're my biggest accomplishment. You're my safest place. You're my best friend. You're... the love of my life. And I vow to treat you like that always."
His ring is guided onto his left hand, accompanied by a few more that he had taken up wearing again. After it's settled on his finger, he clasps onto to her manicured hand before it could fall back to her side, interlacing them.
"Kai, do you take Mila to be your wife?" Josie continues, looking at both of them with unsolicited joy. She and everyone else that stood up there with them were truly happy for them.
"I do," he answers, slowly; in a way that allowed the statement to caress her skin like a liberating breeze. Like a promise of freedom.
"Mila, do you take Kai to be your husband?"
"I do," she says, nodding her head, "Of course I do."
The gray clouds that had gradually approached the area and loomed over the crowd had gone unnoticed by the two of them. Really the only one who had noticed the change was Lizzie, but since she had decorated the backyard with bright features and strings of lights in preparation for the gloomy forecast, a few dark clouds didn't steal any of the attention away. However, Lizzie did not anticipate rain to come along with them. Especially mid-ceremony.
A few droplets trickled down from the sky. One hit the prickly skin of Kai's cheek. Another dampened a page of the vows still clutched in her another hand. And a handful of the audience had felt it sink into their formal wear.
Then, in the span of mere seconds, the warning patter had turned into a complete downpour. Mila gasped at the sudden coldness and how her dress started to stick to her body. Kai craned his neck toward the sky, startled by the abrupt rainfall, but he quickly returned his gaze to Mila. Their eyes met and laughter emitted from both of them.
Because even victim to an unexpected storm, even with moppy hair and drenched clothes, they had never been more certain. About choosing each other. About fighting for each other. About finding one another just to lose them again. Because this, what they had, was the best of part of life. It was what life was about.
Josie tenses, attempting to get more underneath the arbor for cover. "Oh, god! Uh, then, by the powers vested in me by some sketchy ordaining website, I pronounce you both husband and wife! You may kiss— oh. Okay then. You guys beat me to it."
Mila's arms curled around his neck when Kai guided her close to him, connecting their lips and sealing their future together. It was an embrace that possessed so much warmth that the invasive rain had no effect on them. Bodies didn't shiver, moods didn't darken. There was just damp skin against damp skin, enthralling and awakening and perfect to the touch.
"I love you... Camila," he whispered to her cheekily.
"Don't call me that. It's the name of a french prostitute," she grumbled, contrasting with the slight grin perking up her mouth. "I love you, too. Even though your middle name is Bartholomew. Your parents really did hate you."
Kai chuckled at her reply and leaned in to kiss her again. While everyone else stood and rushed to get under the tent, they stayed. They stayed there for a long time. Kissing, giggling, and being an unstoppable ray of light in a dark and dreary world.
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THE NECROMANCER, DISGUISED, had to contain his frustration when his original plan fell through. He had manipulated the weather to cause a scene, a distraction, so that he could act in the midst of all the commotion. But like complete fools Kai and Mila were unbothered, harboring too much love to respond logically. It made him gag from the sidelines.
However, he decided to utilize some patience. He allowed them to sway intimately for their first dance, shove cake in each other's faces, and be the absolute lovesick buffoons they were for a few more hours. He knew there would be another opportunity for him to strike, and he was right.
Alight from champagne, sugary frosting, and spending the day with the people she loves, Mila stumbled out onto the dewy grass with her husband. Only a few people remained outside, mostly the group Lizzie was about to boss around to help her clean up, but they were still huddled up underneath the tent. They were too busy soaking up a peaceful moment before they jumped back into problem solving that they barely noticed when the newlyweds sneaked away.
"Okay, okay. I have to go change." Mila attempted to halt the peppering of kisses along her jugular by sliding her hands up his arms to his shoulders.
Relunctedly, Kai pulled back, but that glimmer of mischief still coats his expression. "I'm definitely down for getting you out of this dress, but I think you should postpone putting different clothes on. This marriage needs consummating."
"This marriage needs you to keep your hands to yourself before you put a miracle baby in me."
"What if that's the goal I'm working towards?"
"You're working towards me having to push a very big head out of a very small hole? Possibly two heads, actually, since twins run in your family — thank you for that, by the way," she muses as she walks backwards in time with Kai's languid strides. "Yeah. I'd say that might mean a divorce."
He gasps. "That's very rude of you to say, Camila."
"You haven't seen rude, Malachai."
Through their playful exchange, their faces had gravitated back towards one another. Mila's jaw was jutted up towards him. Kai's head was tilted to add to the effect of his disarming stare. For the thousandth time that day, a smile slowly grew from his enamoring presence.
"See you in a couple minutes?" Mila asks, pecking his lips.
"Yeah," Kai breathes out, "just hurry your cute ass up. I wanna say goodbye and get out of here."
"I know what you're thinking. We're not having sex in the car."
Mila untangles herself from him, starting to head for the school with more backward steps. She didn't want to turn away from him. She didn't want to miss seeing a single detail of him under the moonlight.
He pretends to act offended by her assumption for a few seconds before he closes his agape mouth and squints at her. "Not even a little bit?"
More laughter rang from her. Mila was glowing, and not just because of her pale skin and ivory dress. Happiness emitted from her the same way it emitted from Kai, who couldn't peel his eyes off her, either.
His jacket was somewhere strewn over a chair, leaving him in a white dress shirt. The sleeves were bunched up at his elbows. The first couple of buttons near his collar were undone. And his hands were buried in his pockets, but the most untroubled detail of his appearance was how he looked at her. Even in the shadows of the night, even when she finally broke and turned around, it was a fixation that filled him with peace.
She was the only one who could set him free. From the world. From the past. From himself. From being someone he never wanted to be.
"Hey!" Kai calls to her, and she spins around. "I love you, Mila."
"I love you, Kai."
This time when Mila turns to go up the steps and through the back door, she's wrapped in reassurance. A settling feeling sinks into her bones and moves her along like a gentle strum of harp strings. Everything had worked out for them, better than she could have anticipated, and she believed it would continue to.
With Kai lured in back to the tent by Damon not having the tolerance for alcohol as he used to and knocking over the ice sculpture, the Necromancer knew now was the perfect time to swoop in. They were finally separated. Their guards were down. He was going to cause utter destruction.
Mila's fingers had just latched onto the door handle when the Necromancer grabbed her. This wasn't like his other attack. He didn't render her unconscious or cause her any harm. He only gripped her forearm tight and let his powers do all the work.
Right as she recognized the diabolical man that yanked her body back, the scenery around them changed. Suddenly she wasn't at the school anymore. Her surroundings were made up of musty walls and damp, stone floors. He had teleported them, somehow.
Mila was quick to snatch her arm back. She stammered back a few steps, caught up in her shock for a few seconds, but soon she settled her displeased eyes on him.
"You've got to be kidding me. You again?" She groaned. She stomped her foot against the ground and threw her head back until she saw the cobwebs lining the ceiling.
"Why, hello." He grins and once again displays his rotten teeth. "I told you I had a plan for you, didn't I? Don't bother to hide your terror. You should be very afraid."
"I'm annoyed. And cold. Not afraid, dude."
"Dude? Is that the way you've chosen to address me? I am about the alter the course of your entire, miserable life!"
"What are you gonna do? Criticize me to death?"
"Who said anything about death?" The Necromancer strides forward, leading to her backing further into his infamous crypt. "No, I have something much worse for you."
"Worse than death?" Mila repeated. She was unamused but still worry blossomed. There was nothing around to defend herself with, and by the looks of things, it didn't seem like she could talk her way out of trouble this time.
"Yes." His lips stretched wider, further indication of him knowing something she doesn't.
"What's worse than death?" She questions.
While trying to maintain distance from him, the heels of her shoes come into contact with a ledge. She wobbles, nearly falling, but the Necromancer swiftly grabs ahold of her arm again. Mila glances over her shoulder, and what was behind her answered her question before he spoke it.
"Being forgotten," he says, and then he grants her one hard shove.
The black tar of the Malivore pit stains her white dress. Despite its thick texture, she sinks into it like a swimming pool. Her arms flail, her legs kick in protest, but she's still consumed by it. She's still swallowed whole, knowing that she lost. That no one was going to come save her. That when happiness enriched her life, there was always an unstoppable force ready to bulldoze it down.
And now she was going to be the only one cursed with that knowledge.
a/n: so much to unpack here, besties. i've had kaimila's wedding vows written for months so it was funny that you thought i would ruin their ceremony. forget about doing it to y'all i couldn't do that to ME.
anyway, i'm so excited to write part 3 (the final part), but first i wanna edit and revise part 1 & 2 because wow do i need to cool it with the commas. so it will take some time before i actually start writing it.
if you guys have any questions or just need to yell at me you can do so here :)
also fun fact this whole fic started because i was intent on winning an arguement that kai having a love interest would have been so profound & cute at the same time. made a headcannon list february of 2020 and boom suddenly we're here. i think i checked off most of them <3