In Your Bones: Epilogue
[ Previously...]
“Was it worth it?”
Kai’s words bring Jongdae out of his trance; Jongdae had been leaning against the balcony of their castle, their fortress, their skyscraper, for the better part of the past hour, eyes watching the flourishing view before him. There aren’t any flying cars or androids, but this future is a longshot from the Earth that Jongdae had lived on while occupying his vessel. Forests are growing, the human carbon footprint is shrinking, and it’s been one hundred years since that fateful night on the rooftop but humanity has come to terms with the ‘alien invasion’, as well as the growth of the Tree, and have accepted that the Earth’s spiral towards doom and destruction has been reversed. There had been a war period, of course, governments around the world wary of an outside force that had an interest to unite everyone towards one goal -- that goal being the restoration of Earth and its capacity to grow the Tree of Life. Jongdae had had the misunderstanding, when he occupied his vessel, that Kai was going to extinguish the human race and replace it with his own alienkind in order to recover the Tree. On the contrary, no blood had been spilled in anger, alien or human, and the war period was a cold one, more threats and puffed feathers than any sort of crucial attack.
But once everything had calmed down -- once the Legends had planted the Seeds and nurtured the Tree -- things shifted. Earth itself righted its path when the Tree took root; what scientists had feared (mass extinction of animal species, unbreathable air, and climate change) seemed to reverse, and of course Jongdae had allowed the world’s brightest minds come see the Tree, take samples of it, study it.
An unexplainable phenomenon -- a miracle. Even scientists were moved by the magic of it all.
And so, Jongdae held reign -- not as any sort of King of the World, but as the Tree’s main guardian. The Legends all stood behind him, supported him, helping cultivate the Tree and all of its Gifts. There has been no war between man since the establishment of the Legend’s Rule, and Earth was, for the first time since its creation, in a peaceful state.
Presently, Jongdae turns to look at Kai with a kittenish smile, still resting his elbows on the balcony ledge. “Was what worth it?”
Kai smiles knowingly, also leaning against the ledge and looking out over the city. The skyscrapers still stand tall, their ledges and windows entwined with beautiful ivies and vines, the Tree breathing life into even the most cold of inanimate object. “One hundred years ago on the roof.”
Jongdae hums, thinking back to that stormy night. He had had shot and killed Kai, and then committed suicide… And at the time he had done it without a full understanding of what was to come, but with the hope that greater things were in the works. He had been right, thankfully.
“It was,” Jongdae finally says, resting his chin in his hand and smiling a bit wider at Kai. “Shooting you was very cathartic.”
Kai rolls his eyes and laughs a little, shaking his head, chocolate fringe swaying in front of his eyes. “I bet it was. I’m surprised you didn’t sooner.”
Jongdae shrugs softly, returning his gaze back out towards the city. It’s quiet… calm. Airplanes occasionally fly overhead, there’s the odd honk of a car horn; but up here, just Jongdae and Kai, it’s a sort of quiet that Jongdae has come to cherish deeply. In the past one hundred years he has rediscovered himself -- not only as a reincarnated alien being, but as himself… as the real, true, Kim Jongdae, a man dedicated to helping others and bettering the lives in the community around him. And in the past one hundred years he has rediscovered Kai… Not only as Kai, the seemingly unstable alien who set forth in motion a plan Jongdae concocted thousands of years ago, but as Jongin -- honest, trustworthy, loyal… A leader, a comrade, a companion.
Kai and Jongin are truly one in the same, and it didn’t take long for Jongdae to realize that he hadn’t lost Jongin at all, that night -- instead, he had freed him… and now, he has him.
Straightening up, Jongdae stretches his arms above his head. His robes part slightly at the chest, exposing his smooth skin and the seal of his power -- a scorpion scorched over his left breast -- before he relaxes and adjusts his clothing. He catches Kai’s wandering eye and smirks a little, turning to head back into the palace, the hem of his regalia skimming the marbled floor as he walks. Kai follows dutifully, never far from Jongdae for any reason, and they make their way to the banquet room where a meeting is scheduled for mid-noon. There are already ten robed figures seated around the half-moon table, and they stand as soon as Jongdae enters the room, a beacon of white among deep reds, purples, and blues.
“How is the Tree today?” Jongdae asks, sitting down at the head of the table.
The rest of the figures sit down, and it’s Minseok who speaks up first, his hands spreading in front of him a digital display of readings, “The Tree is still exponentially growing and harnessing power.”
“And the output?” Jongdae asks, drumming his fingers over the surface of the table.
“Incredible,” Minseok smiles. His fingers tap on the holographic display screen, a live image of the Tree flickering into view between his hands. “Electricity usage is down eight percent. My calculations show that in three years we will be relying strictly on Solar power and the Tree’s energy. All of our automated systems -- computers, holograms, cars -- will be running off of the energy.”
Jongdae smiles and nods. “Keep up the good work, Minseok. You’re the only one who knows how to harness the energy properly, but please don’t forget to teach people along the way.”
“Why,” Minseok smiles wryly, waving his hands to get the image of the Tree and data to disappear, “Afraid I’m gonna retire?”
Jongdae snorts, “You’d never.”
Minseok sighs, “You’re right.”
Grinning, Jongdae turns his attention to Sehun. “How is the Academy going?”
Sehun grumbles a little incoherently, glaring off to the side. Jongdae arches a brow and Sehun lets out a little groan, “Why am I the teacher?”
Jongdae reaches over towards him to pat his shoulder, almost patronizingly, “Because they relate to you and your baby face.”
Sehun huffs and swats Jongdae’s hands away. “They’re all brats.”
“Hmmmm,” Jongdae hums pointedly, playfully tapping his chin in thought.
Another huff, another groan. “They’re doing fine. The first class will be ready to graduate in the Spring. They’ll be prepared to go on their mission trips.”
Jongdae nods, “It’s very important that we reach every corner of this Earth to help those who need it. We started off with all the superpowers and have trickled our way down, but we need to start shifting our attention to the underdeveloped countries where technology is still behind the curve. Yifan has in mass production the devices that the first class will be taking with them to hand out.”
Yifan nods from his seat, “I will have the order filled in two months’ time.”
“Good. Luhan, Yixing--”
The two men salute playfully in reply.
Jongdae grins, “Make sure all your languages are brushed up. Your communicators might not get everything across accurately. A lot of the tribes you will be visiting don’t even have a word for ‘spaceship’.”
“Already ahead of you,” Yixing says, holding up his hand to showcase the micro watch on his wrist. “Minseok programmed our translating devices to accompany holographic images of vocabulary words.”
Luhan holds up his wrist as well and presses a button -- a very simplistic image of a spaceship appears, floating delicately above his hand, and he puffs his cheeks out a bit. “The biggest task will be making sure that we don’t frighten the tribes that we visit.”
“By now everyone has reaped the benefits of the Tree taking root,” Jongdae says. “Make sure you let them know you are messengers of the Tree of Life. If you are not welcomed, ditch the technology for a bit and earn their trust the old fashioned way.”
“Roger!” Both men echo.
Jongdae snorts a little. The pair of them are always trouble. He turns his attention to the two women sitting next to one another. “Kyungsoon, Zitao, what’s the humanity report?”
“There was a small scuffle between China and Indonesia,” Kyungsoon reports, her hands now pulling up a hologram of data between them. “Some Chinese celebrities have skirted the new visa application processes and got stuck in Indonesia while doing promotions.”
“Result?” Jongdae asks.
Kyungsoon smiles, “I intercepted and got the applications underway. Indonesia sent gift baskets back with the celebrities and extended an invitation for them to come back to a resort in Bali.”
Jongdae chuckles. “Good. Zitao?”
“Interspecies relations hasn’t had any issues lately,” Zitao has an actual piece of paper in front of her. “You have an invitation from the Altruuin envoy circling Procyon B, they apparently want to establish diplomatic relations between Earth and Altruu.”
“Well, since they’re in the neighborhood, invite them down for negotiations,” Jongdae says, swiveling in his chair a bit. “The Altruuin race is coming to their senses, I see.”
“Hard not to when Legend Jongdae has been knocking at their door for the past fifty years,” Baekhyun says, reclined in his chair, his slippered feet resting on the edge of the curved table.
“Feet down,” Jongdae admonishes softly. Baekhyun ignores him. “And I have not been knocking on their door.”
Baekhyun gives Jongdae a dead look. “You literally sent me over to that weird planet fifty years ago and made me stay for a decade.”
Jongdae sniffs, “I thought you had fun there.”
Suddenly, Baekhyun’s face breaks out into a sleezy grin. “Oh, yeah. Altruuin girls--”
“Next,” Joonmyun interrupts.
Jongdae turns his gaze towards the other man, a small smile playing on his lips. “What’s your report today?”
Joonmyun puffs his chest out a bit. “The defense ministry has gone thirty-two days without incident.”
“Civilian or otherwise?” Jongdae asks, impressed.
Joonmyun nods, “Our zone currently holds the record.”
“Until Baekhyun decides to go out and steal a lollipop from a child,” Sehun says, sticking his tongue out.
Baekhyun leans forward and holds his fist up threateningly and Sehun simply wheels his chair farther away from the smaller man, whistling innocently.
“Ok, ok,” Jongdae stands up, doing his best to not smile and look at least slightly stern. “Enough of that. After a hundred years can’t we stop bickering?”
“He started it,” Baekhyun maturely says.
Jongdae pinches the bridge of his nose. Next to him, Kai stands up, lifting a hand to project a display above the middle of the table for everyone to see.
“It’s been one hundred years,” Kai says. The display is a slightly sped-up execution of all the changes Earth has gone through, as a whole, the globe spinning slowly and all sorts of lights and fireworks exploding on different continents, in different countries, the Tree of Life growing from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. “We all have our diplomatic responsibilities, but let us not forget why we are all here, together, today.”
Everyone falls silent, but easily so, no heaviness in the air. Two thousand years since they left their own planet in search of a new one, and one hundred years since Kai helped unite all of the Legends together once again, once and for all - seventy-five years since humanity united for the shared cause of helping the Earth regenerate itself.
Jongdae smiles, his hand resting on the small of Kai’s back. It’s how they end every meeting -- with a visual of the Earth that the Tree restored, and a reminder that they are all here together for a shared purpose.
The Legends shall stand under the same sky… and protect the same ground.
“It was more than worth it.”
--
notes: a very cheesy ending for a fic that probably didn't deserve one, but tbh i just wrote this epilogue like 3 days ago hahaha orz
another HUGE thank you to christie for beta'ing all the chapters in this fic! without you there would be inconsistencies and mistakes and tbh it probably never would have gotten finished because i'm awful :')
a thank you to the readers who commented along the way!
this story challenged me in many ways. i was in my comfort zone but i tried a few new things and i'm very happy with the growth i accomplished in my writing technique! i feel that i grew stagnant over time and i'm working incredibly hard to break that. not only for me, but for my readers as well.
now that the story has come to an official end i hope to hear some more thoughts on it!
again, thank you to everyone. without you i wouldn't be here writing today.
i love you ^^ ♥
“Was it worth it?”
Kai’s words bring Jongdae out of his trance; Jongdae had been leaning against the balcony of their castle, their fortress, their skyscraper, for the better part of the past hour, eyes watching the flourishing view before him. There aren’t any flying cars or androids, but this future is a longshot from the Earth that Jongdae had lived on while occupying his vessel. Forests are growing, the human carbon footprint is shrinking, and it’s been one hundred years since that fateful night on the rooftop but humanity has come to terms with the ‘alien invasion’, as well as the growth of the Tree, and have accepted that the Earth’s spiral towards doom and destruction has been reversed. There had been a war period, of course, governments around the world wary of an outside force that had an interest to unite everyone towards one goal -- that goal being the restoration of Earth and its capacity to grow the Tree of Life. Jongdae had had the misunderstanding, when he occupied his vessel, that Kai was going to extinguish the human race and replace it with his own alienkind in order to recover the Tree. On the contrary, no blood had been spilled in anger, alien or human, and the war period was a cold one, more threats and puffed feathers than any sort of crucial attack.
But once everything had calmed down -- once the Legends had planted the Seeds and nurtured the Tree -- things shifted. Earth itself righted its path when the Tree took root; what scientists had feared (mass extinction of animal species, unbreathable air, and climate change) seemed to reverse, and of course Jongdae had allowed the world’s brightest minds come see the Tree, take samples of it, study it.
An unexplainable phenomenon -- a miracle. Even scientists were moved by the magic of it all.
And so, Jongdae held reign -- not as any sort of King of the World, but as the Tree’s main guardian. The Legends all stood behind him, supported him, helping cultivate the Tree and all of its Gifts. There has been no war between man since the establishment of the Legend’s Rule, and Earth was, for the first time since its creation, in a peaceful state.
Presently, Jongdae turns to look at Kai with a kittenish smile, still resting his elbows on the balcony ledge. “Was what worth it?”
Kai smiles knowingly, also leaning against the ledge and looking out over the city. The skyscrapers still stand tall, their ledges and windows entwined with beautiful ivies and vines, the Tree breathing life into even the most cold of inanimate object. “One hundred years ago on the roof.”
Jongdae hums, thinking back to that stormy night. He had had shot and killed Kai, and then committed suicide… And at the time he had done it without a full understanding of what was to come, but with the hope that greater things were in the works. He had been right, thankfully.
“It was,” Jongdae finally says, resting his chin in his hand and smiling a bit wider at Kai. “Shooting you was very cathartic.”
Kai rolls his eyes and laughs a little, shaking his head, chocolate fringe swaying in front of his eyes. “I bet it was. I’m surprised you didn’t sooner.”
Jongdae shrugs softly, returning his gaze back out towards the city. It’s quiet… calm. Airplanes occasionally fly overhead, there’s the odd honk of a car horn; but up here, just Jongdae and Kai, it’s a sort of quiet that Jongdae has come to cherish deeply. In the past one hundred years he has rediscovered himself -- not only as a reincarnated alien being, but as himself… as the real, true, Kim Jongdae, a man dedicated to helping others and bettering the lives in the community around him. And in the past one hundred years he has rediscovered Kai… Not only as Kai, the seemingly unstable alien who set forth in motion a plan Jongdae concocted thousands of years ago, but as Jongin -- honest, trustworthy, loyal… A leader, a comrade, a companion.
Kai and Jongin are truly one in the same, and it didn’t take long for Jongdae to realize that he hadn’t lost Jongin at all, that night -- instead, he had freed him… and now, he has him.
Straightening up, Jongdae stretches his arms above his head. His robes part slightly at the chest, exposing his smooth skin and the seal of his power -- a scorpion scorched over his left breast -- before he relaxes and adjusts his clothing. He catches Kai’s wandering eye and smirks a little, turning to head back into the palace, the hem of his regalia skimming the marbled floor as he walks. Kai follows dutifully, never far from Jongdae for any reason, and they make their way to the banquet room where a meeting is scheduled for mid-noon. There are already ten robed figures seated around the half-moon table, and they stand as soon as Jongdae enters the room, a beacon of white among deep reds, purples, and blues.
“How is the Tree today?” Jongdae asks, sitting down at the head of the table.
The rest of the figures sit down, and it’s Minseok who speaks up first, his hands spreading in front of him a digital display of readings, “The Tree is still exponentially growing and harnessing power.”
“And the output?” Jongdae asks, drumming his fingers over the surface of the table.
“Incredible,” Minseok smiles. His fingers tap on the holographic display screen, a live image of the Tree flickering into view between his hands. “Electricity usage is down eight percent. My calculations show that in three years we will be relying strictly on Solar power and the Tree’s energy. All of our automated systems -- computers, holograms, cars -- will be running off of the energy.”
Jongdae smiles and nods. “Keep up the good work, Minseok. You’re the only one who knows how to harness the energy properly, but please don’t forget to teach people along the way.”
“Why,” Minseok smiles wryly, waving his hands to get the image of the Tree and data to disappear, “Afraid I’m gonna retire?”
Jongdae snorts, “You’d never.”
Minseok sighs, “You’re right.”
Grinning, Jongdae turns his attention to Sehun. “How is the Academy going?”
Sehun grumbles a little incoherently, glaring off to the side. Jongdae arches a brow and Sehun lets out a little groan, “Why am I the teacher?”
Jongdae reaches over towards him to pat his shoulder, almost patronizingly, “Because they relate to you and your baby face.”
Sehun huffs and swats Jongdae’s hands away. “They’re all brats.”
“Hmmmm,” Jongdae hums pointedly, playfully tapping his chin in thought.
Another huff, another groan. “They’re doing fine. The first class will be ready to graduate in the Spring. They’ll be prepared to go on their mission trips.”
Jongdae nods, “It’s very important that we reach every corner of this Earth to help those who need it. We started off with all the superpowers and have trickled our way down, but we need to start shifting our attention to the underdeveloped countries where technology is still behind the curve. Yifan has in mass production the devices that the first class will be taking with them to hand out.”
Yifan nods from his seat, “I will have the order filled in two months’ time.”
“Good. Luhan, Yixing--”
The two men salute playfully in reply.
Jongdae grins, “Make sure all your languages are brushed up. Your communicators might not get everything across accurately. A lot of the tribes you will be visiting don’t even have a word for ‘spaceship’.”
“Already ahead of you,” Yixing says, holding up his hand to showcase the micro watch on his wrist. “Minseok programmed our translating devices to accompany holographic images of vocabulary words.”
Luhan holds up his wrist as well and presses a button -- a very simplistic image of a spaceship appears, floating delicately above his hand, and he puffs his cheeks out a bit. “The biggest task will be making sure that we don’t frighten the tribes that we visit.”
“By now everyone has reaped the benefits of the Tree taking root,” Jongdae says. “Make sure you let them know you are messengers of the Tree of Life. If you are not welcomed, ditch the technology for a bit and earn their trust the old fashioned way.”
“Roger!” Both men echo.
Jongdae snorts a little. The pair of them are always trouble. He turns his attention to the two women sitting next to one another. “Kyungsoon, Zitao, what’s the humanity report?”
“There was a small scuffle between China and Indonesia,” Kyungsoon reports, her hands now pulling up a hologram of data between them. “Some Chinese celebrities have skirted the new visa application processes and got stuck in Indonesia while doing promotions.”
“Result?” Jongdae asks.
Kyungsoon smiles, “I intercepted and got the applications underway. Indonesia sent gift baskets back with the celebrities and extended an invitation for them to come back to a resort in Bali.”
Jongdae chuckles. “Good. Zitao?”
“Interspecies relations hasn’t had any issues lately,” Zitao has an actual piece of paper in front of her. “You have an invitation from the Altruuin envoy circling Procyon B, they apparently want to establish diplomatic relations between Earth and Altruu.”
“Well, since they’re in the neighborhood, invite them down for negotiations,” Jongdae says, swiveling in his chair a bit. “The Altruuin race is coming to their senses, I see.”
“Hard not to when Legend Jongdae has been knocking at their door for the past fifty years,” Baekhyun says, reclined in his chair, his slippered feet resting on the edge of the curved table.
“Feet down,” Jongdae admonishes softly. Baekhyun ignores him. “And I have not been knocking on their door.”
Baekhyun gives Jongdae a dead look. “You literally sent me over to that weird planet fifty years ago and made me stay for a decade.”
Jongdae sniffs, “I thought you had fun there.”
Suddenly, Baekhyun’s face breaks out into a sleezy grin. “Oh, yeah. Altruuin girls--”
“Next,” Joonmyun interrupts.
Jongdae turns his gaze towards the other man, a small smile playing on his lips. “What’s your report today?”
Joonmyun puffs his chest out a bit. “The defense ministry has gone thirty-two days without incident.”
“Civilian or otherwise?” Jongdae asks, impressed.
Joonmyun nods, “Our zone currently holds the record.”
“Until Baekhyun decides to go out and steal a lollipop from a child,” Sehun says, sticking his tongue out.
Baekhyun leans forward and holds his fist up threateningly and Sehun simply wheels his chair farther away from the smaller man, whistling innocently.
“Ok, ok,” Jongdae stands up, doing his best to not smile and look at least slightly stern. “Enough of that. After a hundred years can’t we stop bickering?”
“He started it,” Baekhyun maturely says.
Jongdae pinches the bridge of his nose. Next to him, Kai stands up, lifting a hand to project a display above the middle of the table for everyone to see.
“It’s been one hundred years,” Kai says. The display is a slightly sped-up execution of all the changes Earth has gone through, as a whole, the globe spinning slowly and all sorts of lights and fireworks exploding on different continents, in different countries, the Tree of Life growing from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. “We all have our diplomatic responsibilities, but let us not forget why we are all here, together, today.”
Everyone falls silent, but easily so, no heaviness in the air. Two thousand years since they left their own planet in search of a new one, and one hundred years since Kai helped unite all of the Legends together once again, once and for all - seventy-five years since humanity united for the shared cause of helping the Earth regenerate itself.
Jongdae smiles, his hand resting on the small of Kai’s back. It’s how they end every meeting -- with a visual of the Earth that the Tree restored, and a reminder that they are all here together for a shared purpose.
The Legends shall stand under the same sky… and protect the same ground.
“It was more than worth it.”
--
notes: a very cheesy ending for a fic that probably didn't deserve one, but tbh i just wrote this epilogue like 3 days ago hahaha orz
another HUGE thank you to christie for beta'ing all the chapters in this fic! without you there would be inconsistencies and mistakes and tbh it probably never would have gotten finished because i'm awful :')
a thank you to the readers who commented along the way!
this story challenged me in many ways. i was in my comfort zone but i tried a few new things and i'm very happy with the growth i accomplished in my writing technique! i feel that i grew stagnant over time and i'm working incredibly hard to break that. not only for me, but for my readers as well.
now that the story has come to an official end i hope to hear some more thoughts on it!
again, thank you to everyone. without you i wouldn't be here writing today.
i love you ^^ ♥