Fire

Epilogue

"Momma! Momma!" My little five year old Rebekah calls out as she runs towards me.

"Yes, sweetheart what is it?" I ask her.

"Grandpa is here!" She smiles widely. I take her hand in mine and lift up the skirt of my red dress with the other. My daughter excitedly pulls me towards where she saw her grandfather. I see him when we reach a small clearing in the trees. He already has Rebekah's older brother, Elijah, occupying his attention.

"Hello Dad."

"Brella, good to see you," he smiles and hugs me, his dark hair tickling my cheek. "How's Sebastian?" He asks as he pulls away.

"He's fine, he should actually be here any minute."

"Grandpa! Do the magic trick!" Rebekah giggles. He chuckles but squats down in front of her and makes his skin turn blue and his eyes red, showing his Jotun heritage.

"Do you want to see something even cooler?" He asks his two grandchildren. They nod furiously and he stands up and snatches my hand from where it was resting on my growing belly. My hand then begins to turn blue and then the color spreads until Loki and I both look like Jotuns. Rebekah and Elijah burst into a fit of giggles.

"Mom I didn't know you could do that!" My eight year old exclaims through his giggles.

"Well I don't want to give away all my secrets now do I?" I joke with them.

"Oi! You doing magic tricks without me?" Sebastian yells, coming into the small clearing.

"Of course not honey," I roll my eyes.

"I saw that."

"That's because I let you," I joke as he wraps his arms around me and kissing my now blue lips. After letting go of my hand, the children watch as both their mother's and grandfather's skin fades back to its natural cream color. "Seb have you seen Vik?" I ask as he goes to pick up Elijah.

"Right here Anne," he says, kissing my before scooping up Rebekah. "Sorry, I was out with Aurora."

"It's fine, Sevgi. I just haven't seen you all day so I was wondering where you got off to."

"I stayed at Mom and Dad's last night. They had me over for dinner and I just crashed there," he tells me, talking about Cait and her husband who are technically his parents. "How's the baby?"

"Being a pain in the butt as usual. I think I'm done after this one. Three kids in ten years of marriage, yeah I think that's enough." Sebastian goes to protest but after giving him a pointed look, he backs down. "You aren't the one that can barely sleep at night because the baby decides that's when it wants to be active. So you don't get to decide when the babies stop," I glare playfully at him.

"Well in a couple weeks, you won't have to worry about that. Then Sebastian can take care of the baby while you get a good night's sleep," Loki points out. I snort at that but don't comment. Sebastian and I work on wrangling our children and Loki together so we can walk back towards the village. Sebastian and Viktor manage to get the children going and on track, leaving me walking behind then with my father.

"I'm glad to see they are still giving you passes to come see us," I murmur.

"Well now that Sigyn is keeping me in line, they are a little more lenient on letting me out. They've even moved me out of the prisons, I'm not sure if I told you that. I'm still mostly on lockdown, but it's better than nothing."

"How is she anyways? Sigyn I mean."

"She's fine. Still trying to get my to stop playing tricks on Thor, which isn't working, might I add," he jokes.

"Of course she is," I chuckle, rubbing my belly absentmindedly.

"What are you thinking about?" He asks quietly.

I sigh, "Just how far I've come in these past years. I used to hide things from my parents and feel like I didn't belong, then was kidnapped where I met my husband, then almost died and went to Valhalla where I met you, was made Queen, and started a family. It seems like a lot with how young I am."

"You are almost thirty Brella," he points out. I smack his arm and give him a playful glare.

"I'm not going to think about that."

"Well if it makes you feel any better, you don't look anywhere close to thirty. You still look like the 17 year old I met in Valhalla."

"And tried to trick."

"And tried to trick," he laughs. "Brella, you could be 90 and Sebastian and your family would still love you. You have a wonderful husband who supports you and your family- biological and not- as well as your kingdom. Your children adore you just like your subjects do and they trust you to do what is best for them, no matter how you look or how old you get," he tells me, wrapping a leather covered arm around my shoulders.

"You're right, they do trust me. Even while I'm pregnant and hormonal," I joke. "But I'll tell you what, I don't look the same as when we met on Valhalla, Dad. I think my hair is starting to go gray because of Viktor," I jokingly groan.

"I heard that Anne!" He calls over.

"I'm just kidding Sevgi."

He laughs at that and so does Loki. I sigh contently as Loki walks over to his grandchildren and starts to make them giggle while Sebastian comes back over to me and takes my hand. I have all that I could ever want and then some.

When I was young and volatile, I was a Phoenix who was burning herself up constantly just to shed some light. But then I burnt too bright and my light turned to ash. But I crawled out of my ashes reborn, ready to take on the world once again, knowing that a constant, gentle light is always better than a vicious bright one. And so I now shed my soft light over my husband, children, and kingdom, giving them hope in the darkest of nights.  

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This is the last chapter of Fire. Thank you to everyone who stuck with me through this long process. A special thanks to dottleottle, aka Dottie, for all of your encouragement and input throughout the writing of this story. Eventually, I will be going back through and editing this entire thing to catch grammatical, spelling, and continuity errors. Thank you all for your support!