Epilogue - Kai
One year later…
“Thanks for the session today, Dr Khun.” I smile at the man staring back at me through my phone perched on the dashboard of my car.
“Good work today, Kai. I’ll see you again at the same time next week.” With that, my therapist signs off, my screen going blank after a few moments.
Breathing out a long sigh, I drop into my seat, stretching out my arms until my bones give a satisfying crack. Then relax into my lumpy headrest, held together with duct tape, and drop an arm out of the rolled-down window.
A warm breeze flows through my fingers, smelling of sunlight and fresh grass. My stomach grumbles when I catch the scent of something being cooked above an open flame.
Some vampires give up food, but hell no am I doing that.
With my eyes closed, I do the slow breathing exercises my therapist taught me. This session didn’t drain me like when I first started seeing Dr Khun a few months ago at Vidar’s suggestion, but I always need time after to sort out my emotions before freeing them to float away in the wind.
Once I’m finished, I sit up with a wince as a few stray hairs catch on the tape and I have to pull myself free.
I push open the rusted door, give it a single kick to make it stick behind me, and step out into a wide, open field.
Above stretches the bluest sky I’ve ever seen, and behind me rises a dense forest, its thick trees heavy with deep green leaves.
Like a José María Velasco or Albert Bierstadt landscape painting.
Or Windows XP background.
“You need a new car,” Vidar calls as I make my way to where he’s perched on the ground, a half-eaten bag of marshmallows at his side and hunched over a purple flame with shrimp hissing in a pan. My mouth watering at the salty-sweet smell of garlic.
“The more you say it, the less I wanna do it.” I sit next to him, mouth open—waiting.
“Annoying,” Vidar grunts, stabbing a shrimp with a toothpick. He blows on it a few times, then brings it to my mouth.
I pull it free with my teeth and moan as flavour floods across my tongue.
“How was your session?” Vidar asks, munching on his own shrimp.
“Good, not as good as these, though.”
I still tug on my hair or occasionally freeze dead in front of a car. But I’ve stopped feeling like a crushing failure when it does happen. Growth, apparently, takes time.
“Why did you want us to come here, anyway?” I ask.
Vidar arches an eyebrow. “Did you forget this was a surprise trip?”
Skewering two shrimp, I bring them to his mouth, and he sucks them up. “Fine, but I’ll find out soon, right?”
Vidar feeds me another piece. “I had no idea you were so impatient.” He gives me a smug look, even with butter shining on his lips.
“You did say this place was special!” I insist, mouth full.
He chuckles, moving the pan aside so we can continue to pick at our food. I aim a hand at the fire, pull my fingers in as if to beckon the flame in—and it vanishes with only a single curl of smoke left behind.
Squeezed next to my soulmate, our feet brushing together, we feed each other shrimp and talk about nothing important.
Vidar’s eyes soften every time he catches sight of the tattoo he inked onto my thumb, matching the one I did for him. A Wunjo rune, he explained when I handed him the tattoo gun nearly a year ago; joy and happiness.
When we’re done, Vidar places the pan on the side and holds out his hand. “Come.”
He pulls me up, our fingers weaving together as we stroll along the never-ending stretch of land.
The pristine green field waves as the breeze swishes through it, and as the fat sun begins its slow decline, dabs of pink colour the patches of little yellow flowers.
“Something big happened here once, long ago.” Vidar stops, bringing our entwined hands up to kiss my knuckles.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, curious. My skin tingling where his lips lay.
“A thousand years ago, my whole life changed in this place.” Vidar leans forward, silver eyes shining bright, smiling. “This is where I died.”
“What? No way!” I spin around, my hand slipping free of his so I can capture this piece of his history. Imagining instead of blades of grass, swords and axes. “Do you think there are Viking weapons buried under our feet?”
“Norse, and yes, probably.”
I smile when he corrects me, like I knew he would, and look around with new appreciation.
“This is also where I made a vow, little prince….”
I turn back—my heart stops. My breath catches.
Vidar is on one knee. He holds a small black velvet box, and inside, on a bed of purest white silk, two amethysts wink from where they’re pressed into a silver band.
“I vowed to kneel for no man.”
“Are you proposing?” I whisper, tears rising.
“You think I don’t know all the secret things you want, love?
” He reaches for my scarred cheek, my braids pulled away from my face, and Vidar smiles with such honesty that a little sob hops free from my bobbing throat.
“I know you, Kai. Kairos. We’re soulmates, but that doesn’t change that you deserve every declaration of my love. ”
My heart breaks, too full for this man before me.
“And I want the world to know that you are mine, and I am yours.”
I whimper, leaning into his hand. Holding onto his forearm in fear, my shaking legs will buckle.
“So hopefully when I ask you this question, I won't make a fool of myself,” he grins, so handsome in the setting sun. “You know how I am with words.”
A wet chuckle ripples out between my sniffling, and as I try to memorise every single detail of this moment, even knowing I’ll never be able to capture the perfection, I’m asked a single question.
“Kai, will you marry me?”
I say yes again and again and again.
I’m pulled—or fall—into Vidar’s lap, our mouths meeting with the taste of my tears, a few of his own and butter.
The blazing sun dips further, pink turning into purple to meet with the last traces of blue, and with grass tangled in our hair—a ring shining on my finger—we make love, and I tell Vidar yes again, and again…and always.
The End