Elona Bound: Epilogue
----- Simply Gone -----
Ember lay beside her. While her body remained motionless, she emanated heat. Demitra had welcomed the warmth throughout the night, snuggled up to her lover. The woman had created a peaceful calm in Demitra, and every night spent with her seemed to dampen and lessen the nightmares she continually had since the night of her family's murder. She didn't know how long the remedy would last, but was thankful it was working, allowing her to rest from their weary time in the Desert.
Again, a distant voice was heard. "I have to investigate," she whispered as she kissed Ember softly on the cheek. Ember's skin was always so surprisingly warm, seemed to glow a radiant bronze. Demitra took a few moments to admire the woman, as she always did, but did so this time with an unperceived finality. The woman lay, animal hide hardly covering her naked form - Demitra had stolen most of those covers during the night. Her breath was long, her body rose and fell like geyser-dormant hot-spring tides. Demitra ran her hand up Ember's exposed side; her fingertips caused the woman's soft body hair to stand on end and Demitra giggled slightly. She brushed the hair from the sleeping woman's forehead, smiling as a bit of ash fell from it.
She'd fallen for her, bodily and spiritually. Though knowing this, she struggled with how to express it. Three simple words; yet not simply said. Her empathic powers relayed the same feelings from Ember… yet neither broached the subject. The closest she'd come is an utterance during the night, but such things were simply said in the heat of passion and could be embarrassingly explained away as such. But, in her heart, Demitra felt something she'd only felt for one other, and she knew this feeling to be love. Again she pressed her lips to the woman's cheek and whispered the words in her native tongue.
The voice prodded her more urgently. Demitra quickly slipped out of her room, quietly dressed herself, then traveled to the safe haven entrance portal. She paused at the cliff, again taking in the site of the structures below, as if it were the last time she'd see the endearing home. With a deep breath, she turned and ventured forth.
A steep rocky climb brought the woman to stand atop a plateau which overlooked the valley beyond, leading to the outside wall of the Garden of Seborhin. Her eyes surveyed the area, searching for the source. A dust-filled landscape held no clue, and after a few minutes, Demitra almost resigned to thinking the voice was someone within the Windswept Haven she had heard. She turned from the scene, when something... rather, someone caught her eye.
In the distance, through the fog of dawn and sands dancing on the wind, stood a female figure. Demitra squinted to see, and her heart shattered like one of her phantasms, suddenly recognising the woman. It was Valandra!
Demitra reached out, called out to her, began descending the mesa. "Valandra!" she beckoned. "Valandra, it's me, Demi!"
The woman remained silent.
As quickly as she could, she rushed through the valley, made her way to the wall. Peering up, she could clearly see; it was her first love, Valandra. Again, she called out, "Valandra, where have you been? How did you escape Joko?"
Silently, the mirage of the woman faded to sand, carried away by the wind.
Demitra held her chest, her heart choking her throat. The woman she'd lost, the woman she'd made such a horrible mistake with, the woman taken by the deplorable Joko... She had simply vanished, was simply gone...
Demitra wept. She wept for her heart; wept for Valandra; wept for Elona and the oppression of her people. Until... her tears stopped being tears, liquid replaced with sand streaming down her face. She looked at the piled sand in her hands, falling from her fingertips, then saw her fingers, themselves, began dissolving. She shrieked in horror, attempted holding what remained of her digits. They were no longer apart of her, however. Simply vanished... Simply gone.
She held the remnants, placed her palms on her cheeks. Was horrified to feel her face also turning to dust in the wind. She collapsed onto the ground, shocked, disturbed, appalled at what was happening. The fate of Vabbi, the fate of Elona... The fate of Valandra and the fate of Ember coursed through her mind.
"Em... Ember... Em... Emily?" she weakly muttered.
Her finger-less gauntlets were all that remained and they landed on the ground.
Demitra had simply vanished... simply gone.
The End???
