Running With the Wave

Epilogue

This last chapter is dedicated to MalikaDreams who has stuck with me to the end, even promoted my story in her 30 day writing challenge without me asking her to or having to do something in return. Thank you so much!

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Twenty six years later

A person climbs the hill, his figure black against the background of the setting sun. His face is lined with hardship, his emerald eyes holding sadness and grief in them. His thighs burn from the long climb, but he ignores the pain as he always had. Finally, he reaches the top to a small platform ending in a cliff. A single grave stone is on the back of the platform, still standing tall despite the strong winds. The figure sits in front of the stone and traces the words that, worn down by twenty six years of harsh weather, are all but illegible. He knows them off by heart though, and they echo in his head as a sharp reminder of what he's lost:

Era Asdilo

July 27 3012 - May 13 3026

A savior, a mother, a lover and a legend

She will never be forgotten

"You once told me that if you died I could just move on and find someone else to love. You were wrong, Era. I can never love anyone the way I loved you, and I never will." Hunter whispers.

It's not hard for him to bring up a memory Era's face; she's practically all he's thought about since her death. But in his mind her eyes don't have the scars and pain hiding behind them, and there's no blood trailing down her leg from that deep wound. It's from when he first met her, in the field in front of the prison. When the world was still a sick, dangerous place.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Startled, Hunter turns to the source of the voice and finds Moa looking at him with soft eyes.

"Hey, Moa." He replies warily.

She comes and sits next to him on the grassy ground, and takes his hand in hers. Hunter looks down at her. Moa is no longer the eight year old in the prisons that Era had cared for. She isn't the eight year that helped Hunter convince the men to heal the world either. Now she's a thirty four year old woman, married to Guelf, a man who was only a year younger than Hunter when he and Guelf were in Keeper training together. She has two kids, a boy and Keara's little girl, named Jessa, who isn't so little anymore, and the whole family loves each other with all their hearts. More than one time Hunter had found himself jealous of her. How come he and Era couldn't have that life? How come she had to die?

"I didn't know Era for very long," Moa says softly, "but I knew her long enough to know she didn't deserve to die. Every day that's passed I've wished that I could have been the one to jump in front of Sebastion's bullet instead of her, but Era was the only one to notice what he was doing."

Hunter nods soundlessly, tears beginning to stream down his face.

"It's not fair, Hunter," Moa continues, "It isn't. But that's just the way it is."

"I know." He whispers.

For a while they sit there in silence.

"Her last words to me were 'I love you, Hunter. I always will. Remember, keep on running'" He recalls sadly, "I never told her 'I love you' back."

"Era knows you love her. She's watching you right now, knowing that you haven't married, haven't fallen in love even since her. And that's enough to show her that the love you have for her can't be put in words."

He looks up at Moa and smiles sadly.

"Thank you, Moa."

Together they get up, still holding hands, and walk down the hill, running with the wave.