10. Epilogue

Paraat came, and it came too late. The gods ran into the group of Honey Badgers about halfway their journey home. Tikidas apologized so often it secretly went against the strict laws of Paraat. Bella would have said something wise. Something like “we thank you for the help regardless” or “good friends, we will need your army in the future”.

But Bella slept and the rest were pissed off, so Paraat was brushed aside. Back at the Throne, Ardex stormed up to his family.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He examined Bella, inspected all her wounds, and gave her hundreds of kisses on the head. “I should have been with you. I should have burned all those Pricecats.”

“Yes. You should have been with us,” Darus chewed him out. “But you were in your own little world again, weren’t you? What rage fit caused your new volcano this time?”

“Brothers,” Feria called out, “let it go.”

“No,” said Ardex softly, “he’s right. I was stuck. I was certain the Ancient Turtles did it and I let anger guide me. I’m trying to be better.”

Ardex and Darus stayed behind as the rest walked on. They spoke to each other in increasingly soft and friendly tones—their brotherly ritual. The others carefully laid Bella in her bed and refused to leave the room until she awoke again.

Not even a day later, Tikidas stood before their destroyed gate. With Bella unable to perform her duties as head goddess, the task fell to Ardex. Cosmo was usually considered the “second wisest god”, but he had immediately flown to Garda to see what exactly was going on over there.

“We apologize again,” said Tikidas. “It’s our fault. We could have arrived in time.”

“It happened.” Ardex mostly felt exhausted. He could accept Paraat had other rules to which they wanted to adhere, he couldn’t accept how cruelly they treated their children.

“We have a proposal. We will assemble an army, to help you, to make Preza answer for their deeds. We’ve already arranged five clansteads, including the Cavedwellers. A name we should probably shorten, I think.”

He smiled, something that only made a honey badger look scarier. “We’ll call ourselves the Delja: the avengers.”

Ardex somehow found the strength to tap Tikidas on the head with his tusk. “Maybe later. For now we just want peace and safety for Bella.”

And we don’t want those barbarians of yours under our command, he thought. Tikidas nodded. “We will continue building the alliance. Let us know if anything changes.”

The Fearvolcano behind the Throne now rumbled all day long. When Ardex heard the Prizecats actually moved across the seas on the backs of Ancient Turtles, it took all his effort not to erupt.

He told of the strange automatic forest in Elwoda, suspiciously similar to the prison in which the gods suddenly found themselves. The animals in the area called it electro: godlight. But the gods knew they had nothing to do with it. And it didn’t seem like any other magic, either.

Ardex joked he had placed the volcano in the wrong spot, but no one laughed. They stayed at Bella’s bedside to care for her.

Leion came by later. He still walked with some difficulty, but had refused to let Tikidas bring him. Even if he disagreed with Paraat’s laws, there were limits.

“They must be so proud of you, right?” Eeris began hopefully.

“Yes, so proud—the Paraat way. They’ve devised a new Challenge based on my run: the Marathon. Young honey badgers now have to run that same distance as fast as possible. That’s supposed to make them stronger, says Tikidas. Madness!”

“Just you wait,” said Eeris, laughing. “Before you know it, the Juradom will act like it’s a sacred path and make everyone run it annually as a spiritual challenge.”

Leion tilted his head quizzically at the laughing Eeris. “Living creatures are strange, aren’t they?”

“Infinitely strange. It’s fascinating.”

“It’s frustrating and unnecessary,” Ardex grumbled, sitting uncomfortably on Bella’s throne.

That was the moment Leion decided. He said farewell to the gods and departed south. He had never been there, but wanted to meet the creatures and tribes. With his speed he could travel the entire world; with his training he need never fear danger.

The animals had by now shortened Cavedwellers to Dwarves and saw them emerge more and more often from holes in the Impossible Wall. Darus claimed he really had heard them, all this time, but thought Ardex was annoying him again with lava streams in the mountain.

And on the exact day Bella awoke, their lost little sister happened to appear. Or maybe it was the other way around.

When Hanah walked into the throne room, no one knew what to do. They hadn’t seen her in so long. They were certain she deliberately avoided her family. But she looked the same as always: a small, cute, lively red panda.

Her family regarded her as a stranger, but in the panda’s eyes her brothers and sisters were still the love of her life.

“Why are you all being weird? Come here, come here, give me a hug.”

Bella found her strength first and ran to Hanah. They soon covered her with hugs and kisses, only stopping when evening fell, and they looked out over “their” world from the high roofs of “their” Throne of Tomorrow.

“Why did you come back?” asked Bella. She stared at the stars, supported by Eeris and Feria.

“Because you revealed the secret.”

“How do you always know these things?”

Hanah sternly eyed each member of her family in turn. No, not stern—a look Ardex didn’t recognize. “I’m … scared. I’ve never been scared before. But now we’re vulnerable.”

Bella spoke, her voice raw, but still just as warm. “Same as always, back to how it was. Give this planet more beautiful life than anywhere in the universe. Care for them as best we can. That’s our duty, right? This doesn’t chance that, right?”

Ardex, however, felt it in everything. He saw it in Bella’s eyes, in her fur with bald patches. The bear who was would never return.

And so it was that life continued …