Myra stood in the crowd, and for just a moment, she was another face in an endless throng of revellers. The firelight flickered nearby, the beat of footsteps echoed in her ears. Bliss touched her with a gentle hand as she danced and danced. For a moment, everything faded away. All cares, all worries, all fears...lost to the dance of fire.

Then the moment was lost. For as she looked out at the crowd, valkyries with valkyries, elves with elves and humans with humans, she realised just how long they had left to go. Decades of rebuilding, decades—no, centuries, for it would be naïve to think it could all be done in decades—of reconciliation. The wounds of aeons remained within them, and her work was far from done. Just as dread and despair filled her at the thought of the long road left to travel, just as bliss withered like a flower in winter, she caught sight of green eyes, watching her through the fire lit city.

Green eyes that had reminded her of the sea from the very first time she saw him. Green eyes that anchored her in place when she was drifting so far from home. Green eyes reflecting a vulnerable, open soul who had let her see the darkest, worst parts of him when he hid the truth from the world with humour and daring. Green eyes that pulled her back from despair when everything felt lost. Green eyes that promised her that they could do this if they were together, that he'd be there all the way and even longer than that.

Suddenly she was by his side, dancing with him to the beat of a joyous drum. His arms were around her and the gaze of his green eyes was filled with love.

A love so strong and unconquerable that it faced five years apart, that it had changed the course of a war, that it had saved them both a thousand times, withstood the tests of time and every force trying to break them apart. A love that she'd never seen the match of it, except in what she felt for him.

That was when forever dawned on Myra. Because that was what they had. Forever. Jasper was immortal and she could live a thousand years. They might never make it that far, of course—soldiers rarely did—but there were so many years ahead that her heart seemed to burst with joy to think of them. The dream that they had thought lost on the blood-stained walls of Crimsith so many years ago was now with them now, bright and gold and glorious as the newborn sun. That dream she had had of children with his green eyes and her red hair—for such a thing was possible, though it had never happened before—was suddenly real and standing right in front of her.

She whispered his Name softly into his ear, and he whispered hers to her. The rest of the crowd faded away, lost to a love and a dream so strong that everything else seemed distant and pale in comparison.

"I love you, Myra," he said softly, pulling out of the crowd.

"I love you too, Jasp."

"Do not call me that—" he began, but she stopped him with a kiss, as soft and filled with possibility as their budding hopes of the future ahead.

She pulled him back into the revel, the daughter of the ocean and the son of fire dancing as one in Veron as the city awaited the dawn.

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Nala

Nala smiled as Lysandra joined the dancers, midnight black dress twirling in the firelight. She had no doubt she was thinking of her newfound power as she grinned.

Power she might amass, if she won the coming election. But that didn't matter, not really. What mattered was that there was an election. A democracy. A world where people choose their rulers.

But most importantly, a world where being human didn't suffering and death. A world where human nations were just as strong and noble as valkyrian or elfin ones. For millennia, her people had lived downtrodden, broken by warlords, empresses and the harshness of the desert itself. And while the desert would still be their home, no longer would they be enslaved. No longer would they be conscripted into meaningless, bloody wars. Nala had fought for so very, very long for this.

A world of possibility. A world where people like her had the opportunity to live free, to become whoever they wished. Humans had suffered for so long in the Lost Continent. Now she would buy her people a chance. To redeem themselves, to have history deem them not the servants of the Empress who brought darkness upon the world. But as the people who helped to bring her down. A people who were strong, even without war-gift or magic. A people who would not be broken, despite the world that sought to do just that.

That world was theirs now. Nala had fought long and hard for it. She smiled brightly as she stared back into the desert land to the south. The land that had birthed her and raised her. That had tried to break and kill her so many times. Hers. By blood and suffering and survival.

The time of the Empress was over. The time of division, of hatred, of wars-over.

Nala was ready to let her people into the light.