Womanish Lady

Epilogue:

   Nali slowly opened her eyes even though she had hoped to pass on along with her lover. She was in a daze; having no particular emotion or thought,

With the deceased Norekeito riding on his horse, Nali walked with both horses back to her village.

However, though she followed all of the checkpoints that always led to her village, she came to the last checkpoint, but saw only unrecognizable debris.

She stayed in her daze as she walked through what she finally acknowledged at her village.

Then, her two lifetime comrades found her and ran up to her.

"Nali," calmly said one. All the women were in a daze. "Though I wish you were here, I'm glad you weren't. It was awful."

"We failed our mission then?"

"It neither failed nor succeeded. We tried to stop the General, but we couldn't. However, he died in his own destruction in the end. But - we did not win anything, as you can see."

The second comrade spotted Norekeito and had a bitter sigh.

"I don't know what Norekeito was doing all the way out there," said Nali. "But I guess I'll never know. Anyway, what are you two doing now?"

"We're finding any survivors to send to the Kingdom of Everspring. They know what happened and King Kyuni offered to give those who remained a place to live."

"No," said Nali. "I meant - what are you two going to do?"

"Ah."

There was a moment of silence.

"Me and her, we've decided to go far and live peacefully. Start a new life, get married, have children. The peaceful life."

"That sounds wonderful. May I join you two?"

Though the two friends already knew that Nali was behaving unnaturally, they were surprised to see her not caring about her surroundings.

"You can definitely join us! Just help us clean up this place."

The three women continued their search for survivors, which were very few. Then they retrieved whoever deceased's body was still intact and prepared to bury them outside the village.

Nali, though in a daze still, her heart pinched at a thought.

"Where's my sister?"

"I don't know," said one.

"She's definitely not within the village. However, during the destruction, there was an explosion over there." She pointed towards the forest with the damaged trees.

Upon request, the two friends followed Nali into the forest. An explosion had definitely happened. Three horses' burnt bodies, three random mens' bodies scattered over and, the deceased bodies of Fuyaiyah and Siomi, huddled together and stuck under a tree.

It wasn't until this moment that it dawned on Nali that nearly everything she held dear was destroyed. She was about to fall to her knees, but her friends caught her and let her cry as loud and as long as she needed to.

With the help from the Kingdom of Everspring, the gravesite of her village was complete. They helped make the place so beautiful. The three women and the few remaining villagers were grateful.

"I still can't believe what happened." Said Princess Zyla with sorrow, who had escaped with the help of Thylin - who was also among the deceased. "We were there to celebrate a wedding. I don't know how it turned out like this. I don't think I'll get over it but," she looked at the gravesite filled with flowers and stones shone on by the sun. "-with all of them buried beautifully, I can start to accept it though I'll miss everyone."

Prince Tuquor had done all of his crying in his chamber when he first heard the news. Now he just stood there with courtesy, looking blankly at the ground.

King Kyuni, who did not have that luxury, walked up to Nali and her friends.

"We will do everything we can to help your remaining village live comfortably under our rule. Visit us anytime and we'll treat any of you very well."

The three women expressed their gratitude, and refused when King Kyuni offered to give them a place to stay in the Palace until they could get themselves together again.

"We've already done our mourning," said Nali - in better spirits than that of three weeks ago. "So now we're going to start new lives."

They understood and saw the three women off before returning to their Kingdom.

"For Fuyaiyah's sake," started Prince Tuquor, after hours of not saying anything. "We must make sure her village can live well with us."

The two siblings agreed.