Those Who Suffer, Those Who Survive

Epilogue

The lies were air tight. His story, unshakeable.

On returning to an Angora which had been set free from its menace, Noctis faced two fathers. The overjoyed one, Mr. Pietersen. And the lost looking one, Mr. Urbach.

The blood curdling story the Knight told the awed people of Angora might have hid Agnes's truth. It might've erased her role as the bloodthirsty killer to only be retold as the brave girl who had gone after the Pietersen boy when she witnessed the Wolf take it.

"And it was for her, that I could bring the boy back alive. She died...to save the child." Noctis concluded his tale which might've given relief to the townsfolk that the Wolf had been slain, but it doused the light in the friendly eyes of Mr. Urbach.

"Doused," Noctis thought,"Someday to perhaps be rekindled with pride for his late offspring. Better yet for Jefferey Urbach than being crushed all together by the truth."

And as far as the vengefully excited villagers who wanted to see the slain beast were concerned, the gaping hole in the middle of the lake had to suffice.

As he left Angora, giving the town a new fable, one of the brave girl and the gallant Knight, Noctis found himself thinking of Agnes's words.
       

There are those who suffer.

But then again, there are those who survive. Those, who were more fortunate than Agnes, had people to rely on. People like himself may not have many. But that one person... That one old man who would go against the world to prove you right and bear the brunt of your curse yet come forward with a smile to help you fight it.
Noctis was a survivor. He had a person to keep him sane (unbeknownst to him, there were two and soon to be three)

Perhaps if Agnes had the same... If the world hadn't been the way it is,"Perhaps," Noctis thought over the dead rhythm of his saddle," Perhaps then, I could've looked over my back to find an Agnes waving me goodbye with a beaming smile."

But Agnes will never walk the streets of Angora again. She now had found her forever home in an icy grave dug by Noctis himself.

This is how the world is. In this world there are sufferers and there are survivors. Sadly, it is often the world that got to choose who would be which.

-Fin-