Epilogue: Touch of the Tainted

40 Years Later.

The cottage sat on a hill overlooking the ocean, far away from the politics of Darkspire and Saigetsu. It was a simple place, surrounded by a garden of wild camellias and creeping vines, a quiet sanctuary where the only sound was the crashing of the waves below.

An old man stood in the garden.

His hair was completely white, his movements were slow, stiff with age and old war injuries, he leaned heavily on a cane made of petrified wood, and yet, even in his old age, he was still a wall of muscle; a withered mountain that refused to crumble..

Silver stared at the stone in front of him.

It wasn't a grand monument, rather it was a simple rock, set into the earth beneath a large oak tree. The inscription was hand-carved:

Vanessa 
No longer a Stone. 
She lived. 
She loved. 
She rested.

Silver traced the letters with a trembling hand.

It had been a good life, even when it was hard. They had argued about what to eat for dinner, laughed over cheap wine, grown wrinkles and grey hairs together, gotten sick and taken care of each other, and for the first time in her existence, Vanessa hadn't rewound time to fix it. She had let it happen. All the injuries, the fights, the passion, the sorrows, the anger, the hate, the love, everything remained permanent. There was no going back and she preferred that, savouring every experience, no matter how good or bad it seemed in the moment. After all, to a timeless being, it was common knowledge that time heals all wounds.

She had died in her sleep, holding his hand, with a smile on her face and finally gotten the one thing the Goddess Solace could never have.

An ending.

"You win,"

Silver whispered to the grave, his voice raspy with age. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet box, placing it on top of the headstone. Inside was nothing but a single, dried leaf from the Solspire tree, a loving reminder of the day she chose him over eternity.

Silver slowly sat down on the bench beside the grave, his joints popping as he did so before he looked down at his own hand, the hand of a killer, wrinkled and weak. She had held that hand every day for forty years and she had never flinched, never pulled away from the darkness that clung to him. She had accepted it all, the sins, the imperfections, the scars, the lows, the highs.

She embraced—nay, she purified—the touch of the tainted.

The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the oak tree and to Silver’s fading ears, it sounded like a soft, bell like laughter, like wind chimes lulling him into a slumber.

He smiled, leaning back against the wood as he took out the unsmoked cigar Chernobog had gifted him, looked at it, and then put it back in his pocket.

"Wait for me,"

Silver murmured, closing his eyes as the sun began to set over the water.

"I won't be long."

The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of violet and red, and in the silence of the garden, amidst the flowers and the memories, the Detective finally rested.

The End.