Epilogue
St. Louis
We’d built something that went beyond wealth, or religion, or power dynamics.
We learned true, radical love, and how constraints put upon people for being who they were halted the advancements of society.
There would always be bad actors out there.
There would always be beings who reached for power.
But there would also always be beings who transcended this, and it was by love that we would prevail.
It was through community that meant we would always, always win.
And I hoped beyond anything that we could find a way to show all beings that there were other options.
Some called it enlightenment. I called it community.
The beings of the Pax spent much of their time helping one another, whether that was through the businesses they built, or the healing centers they created, or by various other means, it was truly up to them.
Sometimes, it was just simply existing and being happy in the world, and that was all they could manage.
We didn’t judge. They had what they needed to be fulfilled, and that fulfillment came in waves, especially when we lived long lives.
“What’re you thinking about over there, sweet girl?” Vada asked me.
I stretched out on the couch, resting my feet atop Vada’s legs. We were mostly nude, lounging at the home we had created together over the years. The house I’d called home since the very beginning was now ours. It had changed a lot over time, making it as much mine as it was hers.
“Just reminiscing about the past and how far we’ve come,” I replied.
Vada dropped the game controller she’d been holding and began to rub my feet.
I groaned in contentment. We sat in comfortable silence for a while after that, learning early on from moving in together that silence was its own language.
Our love was the quiet, deep passion that wasn’t necessarily outward in appearance unless we were putting on a kink event.
We loved each other through hard times and easy ones, too.
When the two of us got back from Cennet and Cehennem, we both decided to step down from leadership roles in the Pax.
We focused on ourselves, and on learning how to grow with one another.
We traveled the worlds as tourists and stewards of the earth.
We both gave talks about how to build intentional communities that focused on the needs of all rather than the needs of a few.
We’d even convinced some smaller factions to grow in the Human Realm and beyond.
Once it was understood that the worlds needed to work together, to not focus so much on hyperindividualism, we were able to help establish a new normal across the realms. Underhill was able to thrive without me at the helm of the Autumn Court, and I wasn’t forced to live in a space that held so much trauma for me.
The Gods and Goddesses from every pantheon began working together to help uphold the world they all created together, and their ability to learn how to work within their own frameworks and outside of them convinced the humans who worshipped them to do the same.
As for Vada and myself, we’d finally settled back in our home after a decade’s hiatus.
We were done with our travels, with leading, and we were practically old women ready for retirement.
We’d spent time deepening our own connection to the point where we became the annoying couple who finished each other’s sentences.
We anticipated needs, and our mutual love for acts of service became a game between us.
But we couldn’t rest for long. That just wasn’t in our nature.
It was our grand opening for our next venture, taking over a building in a former hot spot called The Landing.
Now, it was becoming more of a tourist spot again with its proximity to the Arch.
It housed a massive university which fed into the human and supernatural hospital systems, and we encouraged enrollment.
There were twenty-four-hour diners and cafés, nightlife, and restaurants throughout the buildings.
We kept the cobblestone streets here and did not have parking spaces for vehicles, though the technology had changed significantly from the cars I owned over a century prior.
This was a place to congregate, and it was the busiest area in St. Louis by far.
Vada and I quietly opened our shop with no fanfare.
We knew we’d have customers. Our shop, called Parrhesia, made up an entire six-floor building.
One floor was a bookstore that carried some of my favorite books, along with the books that I’d probably never read again.
Another floor was a food hall where you could get food from anywhere in the realms. It wasn’t quite a food court, but there were various kitchens throughout the floor to make sure that each food was cooked as authentically as possible.
We had a floor for our feeders, too. It was basically a sex dungeon, and one that I was sure Vada and I would play on in the years to come.
We still played frequently, sometimes letting others join us.
We invited our community to love one another through learning, through food, through sex or worship.
Parrhesia was about living one’s truth, and our goal was to embody that as much as possible through everything we’d learned on our travels.
I had thought I understood the worlds around me through the creation of the Pax, but what I’d learned was that I knew nothing.
It didn’t matter how old you were, there was always something new to learn, to focus on, and to protect.
Vada and I finally found our why. It was through stewardship, through community, through loving one another and the depth of understanding and anticipating needs where we found the most joy.
I had a big-ass goofy grin on my face as all our friends joined us for the opening.
They were all peeved at us for not making a big deal out of it, but we’d quietly posted online about the new space opening, and we waited for folks to begin trickling in.
Our friends hadn’t seen the building yet in its new form, and we were excited to show them around.
“I’m so happy for you, bitch!” Poe yelled over the music in the club on the fourth floor.
I smiled at her as we danced as if we were many years younger, though I was still atrocious at dancing.
I would’ve thought I’d learn how at some point, but alas, I couldn’t move my body like that.
This space wasn’t for me, and Poe knew it, but she’d take any chance she could to put me in embarrassing situations.
Too bad for her that I no longer got embarrassed.
About fifty years ago, I’d had the colostomy reversed.
My body had healed long before that, but the concern was that they weren’t sure how that surgery would hold up over time for someone who lived as long as I had.
Something about necrotizing organs. I still spent time at hospitals with patients who were getting one, talking about my experiences as the first Fae to ever receive one.
It changed my views on healthcare, and I worked with the humans throughout the worlds to help reframe their systems. It was a patient-first job that often needed more than just surgeons and doctors, but advocates, social workers, therapists, and other doctors than just humans to get a well-rounded perspective on how to care for patients.
I smiled as Vada laughed hysterically with Medb, Ma’at, Amayah, Samael, and Sinbad.
She’d found her own people, though we were both friends with the same crowds.
We weren’t always glued at the hip. It made my heart happy to see that my people were thriving, but no one deserved it more than Vada did.
This last century had gone by in a blink, and I couldn’t wait to see what the next one brought.
There were so many other familiar faces, but the ones who stuck out to me most in that moment were Maren and Daphne.
I stopped dancing, and Poe turned, curious at where my attention wandered off.
We made our way off the dance floor toward the two of them.
I hoped that what I was seeing was a sign of things to come, but I couldn’t be too sure.
They’d been hot and cold for as long as I’d known them.
“Hey, you two,” I hollered over the music, “I’m happy to see you both.”
They turned around, acting as if nothing was happening. “Hey, Adaela! It’s so great to see you,” Maren said as she pulled me into a hug.
I subtly moved over as Vada joined us. “What are the two of you up to tonight?” I asked as Vada wrapped her arms around my waist, resting her head atop mine.
“We’re, uh…” Daphne started, looking like they wanted to do anything else. They didn’t like crowds.
Poe came back out of a vision, and she smiled in her I-know-something way.
I opened my eyes wide in a bitch-you-better-tell-me-later way.
As we were silently, but not-so-subtly communicating with each other, Daphne and Maren had made their exit, and I laughed.
I had a feeling I knew what they were up to.
I turned around in Vada’s embrace, pulling her down for a kiss. She smiled against my lips as we slow danced to the next song. “I love you,” I said, my heart content.
“Until the universes collapse, and beyond,” Vada replied.