ALL NOVEL 54. Epilogue (Kell)
One year later.
“The first time Thekla brought home the human now called Evan Kamiyon,” Dalma says, “I thought, here finally is a man who will steal something from me. I had never been stolen from, which as a lifelong urbanite has been a source of impostor syndrome and agita. I found the idea exciting, and only hoped he wouldn’t steal anything that we couldn’t replace, such as my large television or one of my ceramic evocations. In the end, he stole my roommate, and I replaced her the very next week. How wonderfully everything has worked out. I wish them and also Kell—Hello, Kell—all the happiness in this world and in the one next door as well. I am fishing for an invite on the eventual tour, where I hope to take photos of its strange landscapes and find a huge old-world orc who will make me his mate. Cheers to the newlyweds.” She hands the microphone back to the bemused emcee, who shuttles it to the next toaster.
“I love you, you freaky bitch,” Thekla cries from the front table, where she sits between Kell and Evan. She’s radiant in her dress, all white to acknowledge the human tradition, but with the plunging rear cut of a goblin anointment gown, putting her back piece on full display. Kell had never seen one of these before Thekla came down the aisle and it nearly knocked her unconscious. Her wife (HER WIFE!) looks like a wet dream about an angel.
“You guys seriously deserve this so much,” weeps Anise. She snorts tremendously and wipes a snail trail of snot on the back of her hand. “All the shit you’ve been through that I put you through. You all just look so fucking happy and beautiful. I’m sorry. I had a whole toast written. I love you.” She waggles the microphone. “Who do I give this to?”
“If Legendary changed the world, they changed my life first,” says Maria, the accountant superfan. “And if they changed my life, they changed each other’s lives first. And doors to other dimensions are okay, but I think the music is better, because the music did all that. And that’s all that I wanted to say.”
“Thekla say to me, matriarch, you meet soon my husband. I say: he is human. I meet too many human. Always the crick of the neck and the talktalktalk.” The matriarch lays a hand on her heart, flutters her eyes, to the laughter of the whole tent. “Raioakna Treivai, mi Theklaya. I come to him and he say: I eat your miszkt recipe that Thekla make. And is greatest bug I ever eat. I say: okay, mi Theklaya, you do this marry. To the wife and husband I say: honor Kamiyon as you honor my great grandchild. You not know how ever, you ask Thekla and do what she tell you. Okay, Kellax Kamiyon? Okay, Evan Kamiyon?”
“Okay, great grandmother,” Kell’s husband (HER HUSBAND!) says, and bows low, gold-ringed hand on his slim tie to keep it from dangling. The matriarch beams and returns the gesture. Kell wants to take the image of Evan now—trim, sleek, suited, and glowing with health and happiness—and superimpose it over the starving, shivering human she took into Legendary. The mountain he’s scaled to become her perfect groom is threatening to make her cry in front of all their friends and relatives.
“Thekla, Evan, Kell,” Rahul says. “It’s been such a freaking honor being there to shepherd your art into the world. And if you guys put, like, one third of the effort into this marriage that you did into the first LP, I think you’re gonna be together forever.”
“Kellax will feed her mates well,” Auntie Logga says. “This did I teach her. You are welcome, mates. Give big grandnieces to me.”
“Did I know I was being manipulated by a dragon sorceress into signing Legendary?” Nathan Puck says. “No. I just thought these kids rocked. Did I think they were wizards? Well, maybe Sion Benefice, wherever he is. The rest I just thought were punk kids, who reminded me of when I was a punk kid. And I hope they have a wonderful few months off before I force ‘em back into the recording studio for the next album, because if we want to tour the old world we’d really ideally want at least another EP. Not that they need to say yes right away.”
He starts to hand the microphone back to the emcee, remembers and quickly adds: “And for the record, I like to think that if it all happened again without the dragon sorceress, I’d have put out their album, anyway.”
The first dance and the cake and the endless hugs and tears and slaps on the back. And all Kell wants to do is load her human hubby and her goblin wifey into their coach and she can peel off those lovely outfits.
“Hey,” she whispers into Evan’s ear, between well-wishers. “Let me take you home.”
He kisses her collarbone. “Yes.”
Kell lifts Evan in a bridal carry. She scoops up Thekla too, perches the goblin in the crook of her arm. “Bye, everyone,” she sings out as she carries away her armful of newlyweds. “Legendary has left the building.”
Legendary (the three-quarters of it that didn’t disappear into the giant hole in the world) pile into their ride and let the limo carry them into the Vermont countryside, past the security lines keeping the desperate paparazzi at bay.
Kell has been such a good girl all day. She didn’t barge in on anyone or undress anyone or sneak any quickies despite the dizzying confections on display for her. Now that partition goes up and she’s ravenous.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Thekla says, in the opportunities she wins whenever Kell switches to making out with Evan instead. “This dress.” She presses her hand to the gossamer fabric of Kell’s gown, nuzzles her along the off-shoulder neckline that displays Kell’s chiseled arms. “It makes me want to write a fucking song about you.”
“Would that be crazy?” Evan asks.
“Is what crazy?” Kell’s unzipping his fly.
“We’re about to be away from our instruments,” Evan says. “For like a week. I mean, I don’t know how renting drum kits works in the old world, but I gotta assume, right? You guys wouldn’t want to put in a little time in the Shed, would you? Maybe get started on writing a song about Kell’s sexy dress?”
Thekla giggles. “We’re just married and you wanna practice?”
“It’s crazy,” Evan says.
“No, it isn’t.” Kell tugs his pants down. “It actually rules. Let’s ask the driver to change the route, and then I’m going to fuck you both in this limo, and then let’s go to the fucking Shed.”
* * *
They turn on the riot of lights in the Smoke Shed. Kell climbs behind the drum kit, body still tingly from her mates’ hands all over it.
Thekla is still giggly at the absurdity (and the wine) as she straps on her Alfons. Its sleek rocker red body over her blushing-virgin white dress is a striking picture. Evan picks his precision bass up and blows a kiss to the photo of Sion Benefice someone put over Neko-chan’s kawaii blushy face in the anime body pillow fridge corner. Wherever that spooky bastard is right now, Kell thinks, the bard teachers better be letting him drink at noon.
“Okay,” Thekla says. “Let’s visualize our wife’s tight ass in that wedding dress and figure out a progression based on it. I’m thinking G major.”
Evan, collar askew and smudged, plonks out an experimental pentatonic run. He hits a funky little riff. “First single on the sophomore album,” he says. “Our Wife’s Tight Ass.”
“We have got to get better at naming shit before Sion comes back or he’s gonna disown us,” Kell says.
“My guess is we’re going to see him before he sees us.” Thekla kicks her impractical white stilettos off and nudges a few of her pedals on with her pedicured toes. “If we go through the trouble of hitting the crossover to tour and one of our stops isn’t a spooky wizard school, I’m going to drop Warcry.”
“Okay, Mr. & Mrs. Kamiyon.” Kell loosens her calves up with a roll on the kick drums. “You ready to lock in?”
“You know it, baby.”
“Always, hon.”
Kell revolves her drumstick around her fingers, feels the wood scrape against her brand new ring.
She brings it together with its twin and listens to that wooden click make its rhythmic promise.
One, two, three, four.
* * *
Years from this moment, the documentarian will ask her about the first time she played with this lineup in the Smoke Shed, back in spring. When Evan’s bass slid into place in her rhythm, when Thekla’s guitar first found its ideal low-end duet despite itself, did Kell already see what Legendary would become? Did she feel destiny move her?
“Fuck yeah, I did,” she’ll say.
The End
Legendary will return in Book Two:
It's Nick's new start. When an illegal magical mishap deposits the half orc musician (and unlicensed bard) into the alternate dimension known as the Old World, he ends up stuffed into a snowbank right in the path of Legendary, the aptly named rock band on their first tour of the fairfolk realms. Joining them could be the escape he needs from a life gone wrong—but if the wily bard wants in, he'll need to pay the price. But there's always a way out of any promise you make, if you're smart enough.
It's Dee's golden opportunity. The orcish packmistress will lead her people to greatness. Their big break is escorting Earth's most famous musical artists through the O-Dub, and she's determined not to mess it up. But a practitioner of the arcane musical arts falling into her lap, even an unlicensed one, is too rich an opportunity to pass up. Dee wants the rogue bard's magic sworn to the Voraag River Pack, despite the objections of her client. As she comes to know her newest packmate, she realizes that might not be all she wants. So what? It's not like they're gonna end up mates.
It's Anise's constant headache. The overworked and over-caffeinated elf manager is devoted to her friends in Legendary, and will stop at nothing to ensure their tour is a success. But the road is a harsh mistress even in your home dimension, and that's before you even consider the secret task she's been sent to the old world to complete. And her annoyingly expanding attraction to the pack she's hired to help them. She needs to focus on the tour, not on Nick and Dee. She's old enough to be their mother.
The tour will be fraught with peril, from rival orcish packs to duplicitous nobles to massive dragons. If they want it to succeed, its motley crew will have to overcome the gulf between their homeworlds and the gap between their hearts. The ancient power of music is theirs if they're willing to take it—but will their song be a ballad, or a tragedy?
