epilogue

"For be comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

from a world more full of weeping than you

can understand."

— William Butler Yeats ("The Stolen Child")

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(four years and twenty-four days later)

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Jack looks down at his forearm as the artist swipes a cloth that is wet with something that reeks of antiseptic ointment over his new tattoo. He sucks a breath in as he reads the ink:

the woods are lovely, dark & deep.

but I have promises to keep, & miles to go before I sleep. (r.f.)

Tooth smiles at him, waving her little camera in excitement.

His friends – North and Sandy – give him a thumbs-up and giggle like the girls he knows they are. He's so happy they moved here permanently. So happy they stayed. That for once people stayed. ("Iz cold in Russia," North had said with a shrug. "Iz better here, yes?")

Aster does not smile. He doesn't make jokes or laugh or giggle. What he does is raise his eyes to Jack's, and whisper more than a little menacingly in his ear: "You better not break those promises." Then he relaxes, his arm winding so gently around Jack's shoulders that he knows no matter how much the Australian may bark, he will never bite.

These people are his memories, his wonder, his hope, his dreams. They are the guardians of all that makes him happy – that makes him actually feel joy. They chase away the nightmares of the past.

He is not his father.

But nor is he his mother.

And his tattoo? It's bold, and easy to read, and permanent. So permanent that his fear is overcome by his relief.

His tattoo consists of the black-lettered quote highlighted by the sun inked behind them.

The fucking yellow sun.

(and he's not happy all the time. sometimes he's so sad and so guilty and so disgusted with himself that he feels itchy inside – so itchy – and he wants to scratch that itch but he can't find it. sometimes he's so panicked and anxious and scared that he mocks himself with dark enthusiasm for thinking happiness could ever exist. sometimes he's so angry that all he wants to do is bite down and taste copper. and he does, at times – bite and scratch and hit. sometimes he's so desperate for a gasp of fresh air that he shoves his head too far out a window because it feels like the only thing he can smell is – is –

but that's not the point. the point is that he is not his father, but nor is he his mother.

and he wears blue hoodies more often than he does black ones, and he has a yellow tattoo. that's the point. that's the fucking goddamn point, alright?)

Alright.

What a ragingly beautiful word.