White Rabbit

Epilogue

ESSENCE

"Oh yeah?" Natalia pouts, placing her hands on her hips as she stands on the sidewalk outside the hideout, her blond twin ponytails swooshing side to side as her brown eyes narrow on Ayato, "I bet I could beat you down into the ground!"

"Natalia," Shinji whimpers and tugs on Natalia's arm, his dark brown eyes weary as he chews on his bottom lip.

"Don't worry, little brother!" Natalia beams wickedly, turning around to face Shinji and ruffle his blue hair, "I'll protect you!"

Shinji sighs, seemingly giving up on trying to stop Natalia, who turns back to face Ayato and his sister, Miyuki.

"Ayato," Miyuki whines, tugging on the sleeve of her white haired, blue eyed older brother, "stop it."

"Not now, Miyuki," Ayato sighs, shrugging off his blonde, silver eyed little sister, "I'm busy."

I chuckle as I watch Natalia, Shinji, Miyuki, and Ayato together while standing outside, leaning against the wall while Reece stands next to me and drinks his coffee. Reece and I had Natalia and Shinji a few years ago, Natalia now being eight and Shinji being six. Meanwhile, Caliber and Kazuki had Miyuki and Ayato, with Ayato now being nine and Miyuki being seven.

Beside me, Reece nods his head in the direction of Adonis, who sits boredly in the grass, his right hand resting against the side of his face as his green eyes assess the situation, the sunlight shining down on his blond hair. Adonis is the eight year old son of Labyrinth and Cassidy, making him second cousins with Natalia and Shinji. Beside Adonis, Kaede beams and throws an arm around his shoulders, his blue eyes with flecks of brown in them shining with mischief as the wind blows through his black hair.

"Aww, come on," Kaede laughs, "cheer up, Adonis."

"Whatever," Adonis grumbles and rolls his eyes at Aeryn and Lucian's seven year old son.

Kaede simply smirks at the face that Adonis hasn't thrown him off of him yet and he takes it as a victory, making Reece chuckle.

"I swear, he's even more mischievous than both of his parents combined," Reece chuckles.

"I heard that," Lucian snorts, crossing his arms as he stands in the doorway.

"Whoops?" Reece offers and smirks.

Reece takes another sip of his coffee as I glance over at Kieran, who is sitting by himself on the sidewalk and drawing a circle on it with his finger in repeating motions as he sits there in a crouched form. I smile as I see Libitina walk over to Kieran and sit down next to him, her blue eyes focusing on him with happiness and her magenta hair falling around her shoulders in waves.

"Hey," Libitina smiles, "what're you doing over here by yourself? Aren't you lonely?"

"Not really," Kieran shrugs, hiding his face behind his lavender hair as he looks down at the sidewalk, his brown eyes with indigo flecks in them focusing hard on the concrete.

"Is that so?" Libitina continues smiling warmly as she sits next to him, watching his movements before her eyes flicker back to his face, "do you want me to go get you some chalk to draw with?"

Kieran's breath hitches and he raises his gaze to meet Libitina's eyes, his eyes widening in the process.

"Woah," Kieran breathes out, "your eyes have red bursts of color close to your pupils and they mix into a really pretty blue. But you can only tell if you look closely. Do you mind if I sketch you?"

"I don't mind," Libitina laughs and Kieran runs off, coming passed us and going into the hideout to retrieve his sketchbook and pencil.

"He's like a combination of Indigo and Ink exactly," I smile, watching as he runs off.