Ocean Flow

She did everything she could not to trip over the skirt of her gown as she traipsed across the palace floor, side by side with Tsunami, Anemone, and Auklet.

Even bedecked in deep blue silk and glistening pearls, she couldn't manage to gain the sense of fitting in. There were people everywhere. So many people; and even if now of them were looking at her, she felt as though they were looking at her.

"We need to find you a dance partner," Tsunami grumbled. "I will not be stuck with you under my feet for the entire night."

The SeaWing Princess's dress was made of velvet, dyed the darkest shade of midnight ink with strands of silver glass beads caught at her waist and trailing down the full skirt to brush against the glittering floor.

Ocean Flow felt a flash of pride. This was her cousin. Her family.

Anemone smirked, brushing her hand down the pink and green coral lace of her gown that hugged her hips in a teasingly seductive gesture. "You want some alone time with Riptide, Nami?"

"Go make out with Whirlpool, you cow," Tsunami boomed.

"Ew. No. And anyway, I'm just saying--"

"Oh, look. There's Qibli! Let's go say hello!" Tsunami ignored her sister and pulled Ocean Flow by the elbow toward a young man with sandy blonde hair and black eyes, standing amidst a group of people, laughing.

For a moment, Ocean Flow felt terror freeze her in place, but then when he turned his head, she realized it wasn't Scorpion. Of course, it wasn't. She was being stupid. He'd disappeared and no one had heard anything of him. It was most likely he was lying dead in a ditch somewhere far off in the forest.

"Qibli!" Tsunami bellowed. 

The man, Qibli, broke off his conversation and turned to face them with a charming smile. 

"Hello, Tsunami," he greeted warmly.

"Meet my cousin." Tsunami pulled Ocean Flow up next to her and wiggled her eyebrows. 

"What do you think? She's kind of shy and needs a partner--er--dance partner. She's also clumsy as hell. Are you willing to take up the challenge?"

The smile had dropped from Qibli's face, and he stared at Ocean Flow in bewildered awe, a gentle flush warming his golden cheeks.

Then, his pale lips pulled into a beaming smile, and he held out a hand, which she took immediately.

He was gorgeous.

"It's a pleasure," he said.

"Teeth," Ocean Flow agreed faintly, eyes fixed on his gleaming white smile. "I mean--" she blushed ferociously. "Thank you. Yes. A pleasure. I'm pleasured. That's not what I meant. I meant it's a pleasure to meet you too."

She let out a humiliated breath of air.

He laughed, and his laugh was like nothing she had ever heard before. It was warm, and kind and full of honey and summer skies. Her heart shivered, then proceeded to try its best to beat out of her chest.

"Would you like to dance with me?" Qibli asked shyly after the laughter had faded. He brushed his thumb over the hills of her knuckles, and it was thrilling.

"Yes," she nodded enthusiastically. Maybe a bit too enthusiastically, but Qibli wasn't deterred. He grinned and pulled her away, his warm hand clasped with her own cold, clammy one.

She looked back only once to see Tsunami leering triumphantly at her, and Anemone mouthing "Yes, woman!" while making some possibly obscene gestures with her hands that her curious little sister tried to duplicate.

Ocean Flow stuck her tongue out at them, which was petty, but she was too happy to think of anything worse. She had her family, she had her life, she had her freedom, and dancing with her was a boy whose kindness radiated from him in the most exquisite warmth.

Tsunami

Watching her cousin get pulled away to the dancefloor by a pretty boy may or may not have been what gave her the determination to do what she did next. (With the help of a few goblets of wine of course.)

Riptide was in the middle of an extremely intense conversation with some of his friends, and she cursed the fact he was never alone when she wanted him to be.

But she wouldn't back down now. She squared her shoulders, set her jaw, puffed out her chest, and stomped toward them with all the force of a thunderous waterfall.

"Riptide!" she growled.

He jerked away from his conversation to blink at her, his stupidly handsome face a mask of confusion and fear.

"I didn't do anything," he told her quickly, while his friends sniggered.

Tsunami marched up to him and grabbed him by the front of his tunic, shoving him up against the wall and glaring into his eyes.

"You're a scaredy-cat," she told him. "You follow too many rules, you are terrible at communicating with me, you bring your sisters here and let me think they're your fiances', you almost let my cousin seduce you, you blush too easily, you don't hate Deathbrinbringer, you try to understand people I don't want you to understand and you're afraid of my mother. Also, I'm in love with you so marry me or I'll shove an ax up your you-know-what and tie you to a rock and let the seagulls do what they like with you."

She pulled away and waited expectantly. Riptide blinked at her while he waited for his brain to catch up. When it finally did, his face turned red. "You want me to . . . marry you?" he croaked.

She rolled her eyes. "Didn't I literally just say that?" she frowned. "Unless you don't want to marry me. Do you want to?"

"I--I--I--"

"Marry me or die," she said. "Choose one. You have one second. One--"

"I'll marry you," he said quickly, the shocked flush fading and giving way to a bashful blush. "Of course I'll marry you, Tsunami."

"Thank the moon!" She shook her head exasperatedly. "I thought I was going to have to get myself knocked up, or something." She patted him on the arm. "You're handsome, love, but I can't say much for your brains."

"But--your mother . . ." he trailed off, looking worried. 

"Leave my mother to me. And in the end, if worst comes to worst, we'll just elope." She shrugged, then took his hands in hers and held them tightly.

"What matters is that we try to be happy," she said. "Even if we never succeed, we'll know we tried and that's what matters."

"Yeah," he smiled, a happy, warm smile as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. "You're exceptional, Tsunami," he told her seriously, and there were stars in his eyes. "You're exceptional."

"I am," Tsunami beamed. "Now we've got our stuff sorted out, help me find Deathbringer. I need to kill him."

"Why?" 

"Because that ass had the audacity to get my friend pregnant and then almost died. That son of  ******."

Moon

It was snowing. She breathed in the cool air and leaned against the doorway, watching the snow progress from a fine dust of powdered crystal, to a heavy flurry of thick, white feathers that hurried to caress the ground. 

The dark outline of the trees glowed with a plethora of colors; a gift from the moon's halo.

It was beautiful. Everything was beautiful, and she was breathless. Breathlessly happy.

She felt a gentle hand brush against her shoulder, then slip down to intertwine with her own.

Winter's eyes were the same color as the midnight sky, and they were beautiful; hundreds of times more beautiful than anything else in the world.

They didn't speak. For once they didn't need to. Winter's eyes said: I love you. Moon lifted his hand and pressed her lips against the thin band of silver encircling his finger, the twin to the one resting on her own hand.

I love you.

AN: PLEASE READ

Aaaaaan I'm done! I may or may not add a second Epilogue at some point :)

I've been writing this book for a long time. More than two years; and when I started out, I didn't know half the things about writing that I do now; and even still, I don't know as much as I should. So, it goes without saying that this is absolute trash,  and I'm ready to admit it. I thought about going back and doing an edit, but my style has changed so much that I would end up having to rewrite almost the entire story, and I'm not really in the mood to do that. 

I had planned, a long time ago, to make a sequel, but I've really moved on from fanfiction if I'm being honest, and I want to concentrate on my original works.

So, yeah. This book is an imperfect mess of cliches, horrifying plotholes, typoes, and terrible grammar, but you guys read it and your comments made my day. Literally, they did. Thank you all so much.

If you want to continue to support me (though I totally understand if you don't by now, lol) it would make me unbelievably happy if you would check out A Murder of Crows. It's undergoing a serious edit, so yes, there are definitely mistakes in there too, but it's my precious and I would love some feedback. If you would check it out, I will love you forever.

Anyway, thank you all again! You are awesome and amazing and beautiful and perfect. I love you all. Bye! (For now)