Epilogue
Nyx - Twenty Years Later
The wind rustles my feathers.
High above the clouds, I soar, feathers whispering in the breeze, mixing with the salt and sea.
Down below, my lighthouse waits, home to humans who are mine.
I circle once before angling toward the open window at the top, the one they leave open just for me.
“In we go.”
The air inside is warm, touched by the scent of paper and thyme. They are where they always are—one in the chair with a book in his hand, the other sitting on his lap, both covered with soft cloth.
They look older now.
Hair silvered at the temples, slower in the way they move. Quiet, as usual, but words have long since lost their weight .
“Pretty eyes.”
They do not look up when I speak, but the long haired one smiles, a faint twitch of fingers against the chair. They know that I am here.
I have flown this path for decades.
My wings do not tire, and my eyes do not dim. The infection in the rain made certain of that.
And so I endure, watching over them in the long stretch of years that would have taken me from the sky if not for what runs through my veins.
When the wind calls, I will answer—
but I will always return.
Tomorrow.
And the day after.
And the day after that.
I am the last to remember his voice, the human who gave me words and love when the world took it all from him. Until the one with pretty eyes gave it all back.
And while the wind still carries me, I will keep them in my sight.
For as long as I breathe.