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I'm getting a little misty-eyed here. This is the last chapter, the end, finally. What has easily become my favorite endeavor, filled with my favorite readers and what I like to think is my best work is over. I'm gonna miss working on this all the time, I really am. (Though there are a few readers out their rubbing their hands and giggling that now I'll have time to work on stories I promised them...)
I will still loiter around the section and I might (read: it's coming I'm just going to blame one of you) type up an Epilogue just because I'm keen to see how Goddess!Mandy handles being a Queen too.
And, I wanna do something special, with just five more reviews, I will have surpassed my all-time record for most reviews. This deserves something special, though I am not certain what, so if you are that magical reviewer, I'll contact you and we can work out something special...which will probably be a one-shot gift-thing since I can't do much else than write. :)
So yay! And now pardon me while I mourn the fact that while I feel this should be the end a part of me didn't want to see this story EVER end.
Mandy turned to the couple she had cared for when she thought they were just a myth. A tragic tale of love-everlasting. She had always favored their myth among all the many she knew. "Mandy." He jerked, like he was going to embrace her, and stopped. He closed his eyes in a soft smile, tears leaking out and catching in his eyelashes, and then he looked at her with a look of faith and love and all the things she wanted from her minions and always thought impossible.
He clung tighter to his love, the two finally reunited after far too long apart, and Mandy would have smiled if the scene was a little more private. She was filled with new strengths and new powers, but she was still Mandy and there was still a large part of her she wanted to keep safe and secret.
"I found her." He told her, his voice trembling and hesitant, as though he himself could hardly believe it. "I finally found her." His voice cracked.
"Yes," She swallowed hard, "You did." And a thought came to her slowly, something that had been living in the darkest corner of her mind, growing and stretching until it was a fact, a cemented thing, something tangible almost. A compilation of so many things she had come to know in the short span of her mortal life.
Mortal. She wasn't that anymore. No need for school, rent, bills. No need for parents who thought they would have been better off giving her to a pack of wolves.
"I will be the guardian of this couple." She announced, "I proclaim it here with all of you as witnesses that this couple is now under my protection and if you wish to meddle in their affairs you will be answering to me." Behind her the shadow creatures that came with her powers squealed and howled loudly, plaintively, begging for blood be it mortal or immortal.
It wasn't something she read about often, but on occasion books made mention that this god became the guardian of that couple. She wasn't entirely certain what it entailed, and she wasn't certain what it meant but she would protect these two and see to it that their eternity of happiness made up for their years and years apart.
From the looks on the faces turned up to her, pale and wide-eyed, no matter what that phrase meant no one was going to question her interpretation of it. And no one would meddle with this couple, and for the Goddess of the Night, that was enough.
Mandy looked out over the crowd, and wondered how long ago she had left Billy in the living room watching Sassy Cat on the television. How long ago had her life been tied to that plane, those people? How long had she faced the worst that Hell had to offer?
How much time was there between being an angry little mortal girl who relied mostly on intimidation and here, being a Goddess? An immortal Goddess standing beside someone she had loved for years hopelessly? Standing beside that man who loved her back, who wanted her? How long ago had she been just slightly above average? And now she was to be the Queen of the Underworld, ruling over the darkness, the night, and the undead?
She did not care for the life she left behind. It had been fine when it was her only option, but it had served its purpose. That life had prepared so that when she came to this moment she would know, without a doubt or a moment's hesitation that she wanted this life. This power. This place.
She smirked and glanced at the embracing couple.
They were so different from she and Grim, but still, she was happy with what love she had found. It was not conventional in the least but she wasn't certain that it would mean so much if it was that sort. The sort of love that requires absolute trust and bliss. She and Grim would fight, yes, but that was half the appeal, the idea that they could fight and they could scream and shout and growl, but they would love each other still at the end of the day, and he couldn't feel her and they couldn't share a physical love but that made the moments where they connected so much more precious because those moments were what held them together, and ironically enough it seemed pure, there was no lust to befuddle their minds, only pure love.
She snorted at that, and wavered on her feet suddenly. It was not noticable in the least, and she wasn't even certain that Grim saw, but she was tired. She wasn't aching and she wasn't going to die but energy had been expended and she could do with a long rest, and she could do with being clean.
However long it had been since she had sat and watched TV with Billy it had been too long since she had a shower. She turned to the crowd once more, straightening her back, rising to her full height and tilting her chin up very slightly. Her posture cried 'Queen'.
"What are you still doing here?" She growled, her voice low and dangerous and still it carried over the whole crowd so even those in the farthest reaches could hear her. "The contest is over, Nyx is bested, all of you are done. I have won, the throne is mine and you are not welcome here anymore!" She didn't need to shout, her quiet words were a thousand times more powerful just the way they were.
She wasn't any stronger than any of those present, not actually, but she projected a power none of them had. She was a mortal nee goddess and that made her mighty, they would cow to her whims just because she acted like she had more power, and they were all too scared to test that theory for themselves.
In a rush of power that Mandy could suddenly feel, they left. Ripples of power echoed around her and she would have covered her ears if she thought it would do any good at all. She sagged, refusing to fall and she wavered more noticeably. Grim was beside her in an instant. His skeletal arm wrapped around her waist and she realized that he was offering support. She would not look weak, he would look like a doting husband.
She touched her head to his shoulder, just slightly, and let him hold her up secretively. She had made the right choice. The best choice. She would not admit it, but she had been wrong. Love was a power, returned or no. Friendship was a power. People who cared for her were strengths all on their own, and while minions were good, this was good too.
Not to say she wasn't going to full use her powers as both Goddess and Queen. It just meant she saw there was more power to be had than just a few hundred thousand supplicants. Dione stood before the immortal couple and smiled in that way that had so set Mandy on edge when they first met.
"Your majesties." She said, inclining her head in a bow, bending at the waist, and showing her support and respect. Mandy nodded in response and even if she didn't smile she was certain Dione knew just how grateful Mandy was. Not that she was going to voice that fact any time soon.
"If you do not mind, I think that Orpheus has been out of Paradise too long." She said, reaching her hands out to grasp Orpheus and Eurydice, in another ripple of power they vanished, and the last Mandy could see of them was the lovers, sharing their first kiss at the start of an eternity together in paradise, and all she could think was, Finally.
Grim still stood at her side, but now he looked down to her, a smile taking hold of his bony features, and his scythe crossing in front of them. He didn't need to ask, he took her home, and the last thing that the field was witness to was a breath on the wind, a soft whisper between lovers.
"I guess he can visit but there is no way Billy is staying with us." (1)
