WIND WARRIORS

Chapter Thirteen: Epilogue

Rafer

Time is elusive, it falls from the hourglass and runs far away from you to where is impossible to follow. Time passes; life happens… and at the end memories is all we have left.

Well, all I have to say is that my memories are worthy.

I used to think that time made everything dull, that after a few weeks, months at the best, my "partner" would become dull. With any other woman that might have been true but not with Merle, never with her.

Every fantasy I've ever had has started and ended with Merle.

She is everything, and ahs given me everything, from her love to my children to the very reason why I wake up in the mornings.

We are very much opposite in about most everything but that only makes things more interesting.

"You know what I've always wondered?" merle asked me one night we were celebrating our wedding anniversary, we had dropped out kids with my mom so we could enjoy a quiet evening by ourselves.

"What?" I asked, lying on my back in the grass, we where all alone in the palace gardens.

"When did you realize that you loved me?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me." I said, rolling into my stomach to look at her, sitting next to me.

"The morning after we got drunk, remember?" Of course I remembered; it was the morning she had been promised to Blake. "We were going for breakfast, you were holding my hands and I slipped my fingers between yours and you have my hand a little squeeze, and I knew it then." Merle said, smiling at the memory. "Okay, now, your turn.

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Merle

It's really hard to say where my story ends.

Rafer took the throne about four months after our little Dana was born, and so we all moved to the Windam Palace.

Aimee, who was a little seven years-old hellion – a mixture of both Rafer and me, from the dark hair to the dark eyes, a combination of purple and gray – was in heaven, she loved the palace… though she wasn't really a brat per se, Rafer always spoiled her all he could. Ryan, our five year old who had not only inherited Rafer's gray eyes but also his charm and I was sure he was going to be a real heart breaker – just like his dad – when he was old enough, was indifferent about living or not in the palace, he spent most of his time with my dad at dad's house anyway.

And to Dana, the baby of the palace – named after her grandma because she had inherited Queen Dana's reddish-brown hair and chocolate eyes – was all just the same; she was just a baby anyway.

Even after I became queen, I never really paid much attention to ruling, I was a mother and a wife, and that was kind of time consuming… Rafer was busy too, but he was always trying to be there for our kids, he often said he might be the king but he was a dad first and it would always be that way.

As for us, we always made time for each other…

Once I asked Rafer when had he first realized that he loved me. He said he would tell me if I told him first and so I did. "Okay, now's your turn."

"It was the same morning as you. After your dad told us to meet my father, I got to the meeting hall and you were there in that green dress and you looked so beautiful that all I wanted was to take you in my arms and never, ever let you go. Ask you to stay with me forever." He started to get up from the grass where he had been laying. "I guess that's why I was so mad at you when I first found out about…" He had started to pace around.

"Shh, it doesn't matter anymore." I said, getting to my feet too and wrapping my arms around his waist.

Rafer half turned to me and kissed the top of my head, he's way taller than me. "I love you, Mer."

"I know. I love you too."

He turned all the way to face me and said: "Lets dance. We never dance." Just like that, out of the blue, he took one of my hands and placed his other arm around my waist.

"There is not music." I said but placed my hand in his shoulder and rested my head on his chest anyway.

"I'll sing." Rafer said.

Besides lullabies for our kids, I had never heard him sing; so I half expected him to start singing off key. Instead he pulled me closer against him and lowered his head over mine and started to sing very softly, just for me.

"My prison and my freedom… my darkness, my star. Mix of soft breeze and hurricane, that's how you are. My passion and my heart…May rain, winter sun. What is it about you? Maybe magic, perhaps your charm."

I didn't know he could sing like that… but he could and we were dancing under the stars.

"My pleasure and my pain…craziness and sanity… You're everything to me… hard love, soft caress. Slowly, so slowly I want to love you."

Then he lifted up my face and claimed my lips.

And though I know my story probably doesn't ends here, here is where I chose to stop telling it…

Under a bright, bright moon…

…With Rafer's arms around me…

…And in a kiss that made me fall in love all over again.

THE END!!!!!

(FOR REAL THIS TIME)

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO READ, SPECIALLY THE GIRLS FROM THE MCBC