Epilogue - draft

*some notes at the end!

“I want,” he started hesitatingly. It had been so long since he had had the chance to speak those words. Want. Wish. Desire. Expressions that had become unfamiliar to him ever since his physical body was reduced to the withered remains of others’ will. He questioned, for a brief moment, whether he dared to reconcile with them now. It was so difficult to want – and it was even more difficult to let those wants known to the world. 

 He searched for something in his sister’s face, some kind of sign for him to go on. For a second, Amel seemed taken aback, and even scared – but as soon as she felt his eyes tentatively scanning her, she straightened her back and faced him fully. She didn’t know what to expect, nor did she know what he expected of her, but she put on her best look of reassurance to usher him on. The kind of look she would have given Zrayuu if she had ever decided to confide in Amel the weight she put on herself. This sufficed for Vhayan; he dropped his gaze, took a laboured breath and continued. 

“I want this to go on.” 

A moment passed as he collected himself from this first utterance. He looked back up at the face of the person standing in front of him. In his eyes, she was a little child barely weaned off his arms – paralyzed in time, much like his image of Luyan, Zoë, Sanno and Ati. A fragile, precious child: the one that was ripped away from him all those years ago. But there was a maturity in the girl’s face that wasn’t there before. Exhausted and pitiful, this maturity was cultivated not by her interest, but the world’s – designed by the one person that had been Amel’s everything long before she could even remember Vhayan. The world he had not been able to protect her from. 

He hastily shut his eyes to evade the resentful child that looked up at him. She was not a child anymore; no, those days had long passed. Vhayan willed his guilt to fade, at least long enough for him to conclude what he’d begun. When he opened his eyes again, his vision a little blurred from the force he had put into shutting them, he faced Amel in her true image. 

A young woman, still innocent in her resolve but now adorned with scars from the various battles she had fought alongside her friends. Her eyes, half like him, half like her sister, expressing a deep concern that was rooted in love. Her hair, blindingly white even in the soft warm glow of afternoon sunlight, resemblant of his younger brother that had once cherished all the world like it was gifted to him personally from God. Her demeanor, full of care and empathy, somehow reflective of the siblings’ parents, whose faces were now taken by the winds of time. 

She was a culmination of all those that loved her, and all those that she loved. 

Shakily, but determinedly, Vhayan forced the words to roll off his tongue and permeate the air around him. His eyes seemed to look past all physical matter, as if he was talking to an audience of transcendent beings, an audience that could actually grant what he so desperately wanted in this moment. He was pleading with his entire existence, and his mortal body was too little to embody the request he was making to the world.

“I want… I want to wake up every morning to see the sun shine through the curtains that never fully close. I want to keep greeting the people that come to clean the house, who always forget what my name is. I want to keep being surprised at how beautiful the night sky is from the flatter side of the roof that’s never fixed.”

Once he started to verbalize all the things he had kept bottled inside, everything flooded out. An inevitable force pushed him to keep going, to keep speaking, to keep wanting. Until he reached what he truly had to tell Amel. 

“I want to feel the cool autumn breeze creeping in, and I want to know how the weather ebbs and flows each season here in Desiderium. I want to feel the rain against my skin, and for once, be able to enjoy it instead of being wrapped up in memories that can’t be changed any more. I want to fall asleep everyday, knowing that even if I have an episode that night, I’ll still wake up in the same bed, my arms and legs free from restraint and my mouth not gagged.”

“Vhayan-”

His attention flickered over to her briefly, as if he was called back from a trance. Amel had opened her mouth to tell him to slow down because of his increasingly agitated manner. But his desperation to continue, begging No, please let me have this, please let me go on, with his body language, stopped her from doing so. The moment passed, and Vhayan’s soul was snapped back out of the physical space he was in.

“I want to see how the new empire is built. I want to watch how you and your friends better this world, how you take steps towards integrating humanoids and ‘monsters’. I- I want to be there with you when you visit your sister’s grave; not the grave of former Duke Zrayuu Desiderium, but the one you’ve made for your sister Arwen. I want there to be a proper burial for Luyan, for Zoë, Sanno, Ati… I want to let go. I want to visit Euryclade again, so I can help right the wrongs I’ve done. People keep telling me that nothing was my fault, but it’s – that can’t be right. I’m guilty of many of the tragedies that happened on that island. I want to stop running, stop hiding from all that. And…”

Another shaky breath seeped out from between his clenched teeth. His gaze now fixated on Amel, he concluded his plea to the heavens and now asked for his desire to be fulfilled on the ground two once-estranged footsteps crossed. 

“... I want to learn all the things the people around me, back in Euryclade, once talked about. Like how certain ‘monsters’ communicate through harmonizing their calls with the wind, or how some people can navigate the world by looking up at the stars at night. All the little things that are insignificant to this world; I want to know, I want to learn, I want to understand. I want…” His mouth opened and closed repeatedly while he tried to find the right words to end on. There was a certain look in his eyes now, after all that he had just let off from his chest, that seemed like a kind of defeat, but also a kind of relief. He could feel his heartbeat in the constriction in his throat, its heightened rhythm resonating through his entire body. A sense of elation swept over him as he waded through the uncertainty of his own wants, finally pinpointing the core of the tangled mess of words he had just blurted out. 

His voice dropped to a whisper. Now, the sole audience to his confession was the person standing in front of him, not anyone else. 

“I want to live.”

Vhayan smiled, the tension in his body released in a single exhale. His lopsided grin lost its usual sheepish quality, instead being replaced with a stable, tranquil hope. He reached out a hand, firm and kind, to wipe away the tears that had been steadily streaming down Amel’s face without her knowing. Only when she felt the warmth of Vhayan’s hand on her cheek did Amel’s facial expression contort into something other than a dumbfounded shock. She leaned into his presence, letting him support her trembling body, and smiled back. 

Fondly grazing his palm over his little sister's hair, Vhayan’s eyes drifted over Amel to perceive something beyond yonder. Four silhouettes of souls, four shadows wavering as the setting sun bid them farewell. He recognized each individual one of them – beautiful and sorrowful as ever – and he knew they recognized him too. It would take a long time for the numbness of his guilt to subside. But today, the shadows basked in the dimming sunlight, and they allowed him to rest in the comfort of his family. 

“I want to live,” he echoed. The walls behind the two were now submerged in a peaceful darkness, obscuring everything there that once was. Amel tugged her older brother into an awkward embrace, her tears blooming flowers of moisture on the fabric of his clothes she so desperately grasped. Holding the warmth in his arms tighter to his chest, Vhayan closed his eyes and hummed gently.

I want to live.

I've been thinking about what sort of conclusion I want Euryclade to end on for the past few months. After talking with my friend K, the only person I've shared the entirety of the story to, we arrived on a good place to settle with what message should be shared with the audience. This piece of writing isn't necessarily reflective of that conversation, it's more of a manuscript on how I want Amel and Vhayan's story to come to a close in the reader's eyes. Both people (and all the other characters in Euryclade) will continue living their lives even after the narrative comes to a close for the readers, and I wanted to make that -- the continuing longevity of their pitiful but beautiful lives -- clear. All parts of this epilogue as well as any other writing I do on Euryclade is completely subject to change -- but even if I do end up scrapping this epilogue in the near future, I think this will always be the ending, and the closure, these two characters deserve.

Special thanks to K as always. You make all of this possible 🩵