The Twins - NaNoWriMo '07

A/N: This is a horrible epilogue, and I’m very much aware of it. I needed 1000 words to complete the NaNoWriMo challenge (www.nanowrimo.org) and I kind of bullshitted my way through this final chapter. This summer, when I am finally work-free, I’m going to reread and edit this entire story, and DEFINITELY rewrite the epilogue.

Please give me your thoughts on this story!! :)


Chapter 12: Epilogue


Here ends the tale of the Twins. They who gave their life for a second chance. They who selflessly believed they could do something to change their world, and succeeded… although probably not in the way most eager environmentalist thought was even possible. But with dreams, everything is possible…


I shook my head. Shen-doa, I was thinking about Stefan again. Even after I promised my Lady Selene I wouldn’t. It isn’t as easy as that! I wanted to scream it at her. She may claim to have done it herself, but this distant deity seemed incapable of love. And if indeed she did do it, it must have been too long ago for her to remember the aching pain and sadness that threatens to engulf me every day.

I know that my mother the Lady Selene is worried about me. I know she is constantly watching me, and I know she knows that I don’t eat as much as I should. But I am consumed by the haunting image of Stefan. His shoulder-length silky black hair. His piercing eyes, first gray-green and then brilliant blue. His tanned skin and toned muscles. His lean figure. He haunts me. His sister was a handful, but she would’ve made a good wife. Ana Maria. A pretty name, but already foreshadowing her doomed future. Grace bitter, is what it means literally. Bitter grace. Who knows what went through her mind as she gave her life force to her home planet? Did she regret her decision? Did she even make the decision, or was it made for her? Did my mother – Goddess those words sound strange, even in my mind, even as I write them – always intend for her own home planet to remain alive, but for the Twins’, scheduled it for rebirth? Questions to which Lady Selene will evade if I ever ask them. And Stefan. Crown. If he had lived, he would’ve been my king.

It is funny how Tangi so accurately named her children. Her own name means ‘sadness’. Sadness indeed, to be the mother of prophesized children, although she did not know. Sadness indeed, to be abandoned by my brother when he was killed in his home Land. Goddess, believe me when I said I tried to tell her… Did she ever get my messages? There I go again. More questions without answers.


I am glad I’ve written the tale. I was lucky, or perhaps cursed, to witness the fulfillment of the prophecy, it falls to me to tell the tale. Storytelling by the fire. But I am not in the mood for that, and I doubt that I ever will be. But at least, future generations will be able to learn our history.

I stood. My shawl fell to the chair where I had been sitting, staring out the window. I put my hand to the pane of glass. It is cold beneath my touch.

‘Believe in yourselves as I do in you, and you will do what you must.’ My last words of wisdom haunt me. The last words I imparted to my beloved Stefan. I place my hand on my flat stomach. My body has born three children already. I am tired, so tired, and wearied from what I have seen, at the injustice that my own mother, a stranger to me though, has dealt out.


There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I say. My Lady Selene enters, timidly it seems to me.

“Elena? Can we talk?” she asks, and sits on the stool near me. She takes my silence as acquiescence.

“You are half a goddess… I have no right to keep you here, but I wanted to come to know you. I…” she looks away, embarrassed perhaps? My empathy has all but disappeared since she brought me here. She takes a deep breath, “I wanted you to know that I am sorry. I’m sorry I abandoned you, I’m sorry I never made myself known to you until now and most of all… I’m sorry I did not foresee the possibility of you falling in love with Stefan. I never would have placed you with the important task of being their mentor if I had seen that. I’ve never set out to cause you strife, or hurt, or harm. You are my Daughter, both in the figurative and literal sense of the word. Please believe me…”

“How? How can I believe you, when you… Stefan…” It is my turn to look away. The pain of losing him is still so raw. I’ve lost the track of time in these crystal walls but I know that whether it has been a day or a year or ten years, the pain will not diminish. He was my love. ‘My soulmate’ I catch myself thinking.

“Nay my Daughter, he was not your soulmate. His sister was, and that was one of the most important bonds they shared, to make the prophecy fulfill itself.”

I turn on her.

“Mother,” I begin, and I am suddenly aware that my voice is entirely indifferent, “Mother, tell me what I am to do. This pain eats me from the inside. I am dead within.”

“Daughter… Do you wish to be reborn?” she asks, her own pain at the suggestion flittering on her face.

“Please Mother, please,” I implore her, “If I can be reborn in the same Land as Stefan… in the same World… wherever he is now then yes. Yes! I wish to be reborn!”

“Very well… follow me,” As she rises, she wipes tears from her ageless face, “But no matter what your position… no matter how much, if anything, you remember, know now that you are my daughter, my true daughter, made of light and love with my human lover. Know that I shall always love you, and that I shall always watch over you and yours,” She led me down hallways, but I no longer noticed where I went. Her voice was all that mattered for now, and soon, I shall be reunited with my love.


I leave you my tale, Reader. Enjoy.