EPILOGUE

Savitar smiled faintly as he sat on his surfboard letting the waves buck and roll under him. He was at peace here in the water, nothing to remind him of the evils of the world that constantly nagged at his peripheral vision. A splash of water on his face snapped him back to the moment and he laughed as the small figure on the other surfboard paddled away from him towards the shore. Leaning forward on his own board he paddled after the other person and shouted, "I'm gonna get you for that!"

The sound of laughter and the shout behind her made Nea giggle as she swung her hands faster into the water, trying to reach the shore before her uncle caught up to her. "You're not that good old man!" she shouted back over her shoulder as she cast a brief glance back to see if he was gaining on her.

They were both still laughing as they reached the shore, energized by the merry chase and at peace with the world in general. Savitar enjoyed spending time surfing with his niece and she appreciated the attention she was getting now that the baby took up most of her mother's time. It amused her greatly that her uncle had turned out to be a willing guardian for her once she'd agreed to let him teach her to surf. And the calm that the waves brought to both of them was a nice change from the hectic lives they led. She rested her small surfboard on a log that was conveniently nearby and waited for him to walk the rest of the way up the beach.

"You'd better get a move on old man. Aunt Amanda will be pissed if we're late again."

"Oh you'd better not let your mother hear you talking like that little girl. She'll tan your hide." He smiled as he looked down at her twinkling eyes and wondered when it had come about that he was totally wrapped around this little girl's finger. "And I'm not old."

"Ha! You're older than Daddy is and he's flipping ancient."

"Very true, but I'm much hotter than your father is, so I win." The ease at which the two had become friends astounded them both but Savitar knew that it was necessary in the long run because someone would need to groom Nea for the role she would one day play in the upkeep of the human population and Savitar wasn't sure that his sister and his friend would be willing to take the steps that were necessary to do it. It would be a long hard road for the little goddess and there would be many tough lessons for her to learn and Savitar didn't think that her parents would be willing to hurt her to teach those lessons. He on the other hand had no problem with it because in the end it was what had to happen. Plus, he'd long ago established that he was the bad guy so it certainly wouldn't be anything new for him to be cruel.

Nea rolled her eyes at her uncle and toweled the water out of her hair. "Whatever. So…ready to go?"

"Sure," he said with a grin as he flashed himself dry and into jeans and a t-shirt. "Lead the way kiddo."

They appeared in the huge back yard of the Hunter's house and were immediately assaulted by squealing children and smoke wafting across the yard. Nea giggle and ran off towards the voices of the other children as Savitar blinked at the confusion in the area and headed for the source of the smoke. He found Kyrian and Nick chatting happily, beers in hand as they tended the grill. "Smells good. Don't burn it okay?" he said with a grin as he came up beside them.

"That's why I'm standing here," Nick said. "We'd always be eating charcoal if no one kept him in line," he waved his beer in Kyrian's direction and smiled at his friend.

Savitar slapped Kyrian on the shoulder as he continued past the two men further into the yard. He waved at Amanda who was deep in conversation with her twin sister and the sisters both smiled and waved as he walked past on his way to where his own sister was sitting in a chair with his nephew cradled in her arms. He pulled a chair over next to her and sat down holding out his hands for the baby.

"You're late," she said as she passed the little boy over to her brother and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

"She wanted one last run," he replied innocently.

"Sure she did. You know this means you're going to be punished. Diaper duty for you big brother."

Savitar curled his lip up in horror of the suggestion but snuggled the baby to his chest anyway. "At least you didn't say I was on Charonte detail."

"Ha! You're the cruel one, not me. Nope, wouldn't wish that torture on any of my family, that's for sure. I can't wait until he's out of this phase." She rolled her eyes at the thought of the baby Charonte who had managed to cause so much chaos in the palace since his hatching. The little demon had a strong urge to chew up anything he could get close to his mouth including furniture and stray body parts that weren't protected carefully. Xiovar had come to her several times recently with gnaw wounds on his arms and wings from letting his defenses down while tending his son.

Savitar nodded sagely and let his gaze wander around the yard taking in the inflatable moon bounce on one end of the expanse of grass where Nea, Marissa and several other children were happily bouncing around. There were streamers and balloons everywhere and lots of adults milling about happily chatting as if they were all completely normal individuals. Anyone would get that impression by the scene in the yard but the people in the clusters weren't normal by any stretch of the imagination. There were gods and goddess mingling with Were-Hunters, former Dark-Hunters and demons as well as the small contingent of Squires off to one side. The whole picture amused him immensely and he was happy that he'd come.

"So, any word about Red?"

Phaedryn nodded and grinned, "Yup. Ash talked to Zeus a few days ago. Seems that she's completely snapped, serious buckets of crazy. So he's put her in a nice padded room and I don't think we're going to have any more problems with her. Not that she has the juice to pull anything anymore." When Nea had taken almost all of Artemis' power and put it into her brother it hadn't surprised Phaedryn any but Ash had been rather astounded at that little gift.

"It's kind of sad you know? I mean who are you going to have for an arch rival now?"

Phaedryn glared at her brother for a moment and then realized that he was joking, "Well I guess you're going to have to be my rival now huh? Or, I could go see if Hera wants to throw down."

"Oh no! Not me. I'm a good guy remember?"

"Well that all depends on who you ask," said the deep rumbling voice of Acheron from behind where they sat. He clapped Savitar on the shoulder and kissed his wife before seating himself between them. "Glad you decided to show up brother."

"Hey, it's not everyday one is invited to a combination birthday, naming day, anniversary, engagement, it's not the end of the world celebration."

"You have a point there," Ash chuckled. The party had been Tabitha's idea, in honor of Marissa's birthday, her own anniversary, Brychon's birth and naming and the now standard enjoyment of narrowly averting Armageddon. So she'd talked her sister into hosting the shindig and everyone eagerly agreed to come celebrate. It wasn't often that they had time to relax and enjoy living instead of constantly having to do battle against things that wanted to kill them, so the party was a refreshing change of pace.

"Well if you two will excuse me, there's a dragon and an X-Box that need my attention," Phae said as she rose from her chair.

"So what ever happened with Misos?" Savitar asked. "He still planning on destroying the world? Or is that next week's agenda?"

Ash looked at his wife and burst out laughing. "You're never going to guess what happened with that. Turns out that because Zeus found out what a bad girl Artemis had been and how Misos has stepped in to help out with that, Zeus released him from his cave." Savitar raised an eyebrow and motioned for the other man to continue. "Well since he's powerless nowdays he seems to have decided that Kalosis is a good place to stay."

Phaedryn picked up the thread of the story, "Turns out that Misos was a lot better of a friend to Apollymi than we were led to believe. So they seem to be quite happy down there." She shrugged and waved her hand as if dismissing the whole thing. "Whatever keeps them out of our hair is fine by me. Anyway, Bry's been fed so I'm outta here. Call me when it's feeding time at the zoo okay?" She kissed Ash again before walking off towards the house where Illarion was waiting to challenge her to his latest video game. She paused in her travels to grab Nick's hand and drag him away from Kyrian and Lisa who was happily flaunting the large diamond ring on her finger to anyone around.

"It's nice that this is all working out. 'Bout time we had a chance to catch our breath." Savitar said as he looked down at the small bundle of his nephew.

"How long do you think it'll last?"

Savitar shrugged as best he could without waking the sleeping infant, "Oh you know how it goes, just when you think it's all sunshine and roses someone comes along and shits on your shoe. Who knows? Let's just enjoy the quiet while we can, right?"

Ash smiled as he leaned back in his chair, "Sounds like a plan."

The End (maybe)