“You did WHAT?!” The voice was shrill, and full of terror and dread. “You.. WHY?! HOW?! WHAT?!” the screaming and the questions were well earned. I couldn’t help but let a shy smile slip onto my lips.
“I hear you, I know. It WAS very stupid. In fact, I knew I couldn’t tell you because of how stupid it was.” She slapped me again, my face shifting for only a split second between my forms. “But… I wanted nothing more than to be with you. Not just until my end, but until the world ends around us. You deserved more than the 60 more years I may have had. Our friendship… Our relationship deserved more.” I said as her tears began to flow. They were clearly a mix of emotions. Happy that I was alive, anger that I had done something so stupid, fear that I would do something stupid again, and of course the relief that I was holding her in my arms now as she slumped into my new body.
Rogs stood dumbfounded behind her. “Was this what you were going to ‘Invite me to join you’ in?” he shuddered, as if the idea of being an elf held a very poor connotation to him.
“Yeah, I mean if all three of us could live for as long as we wanted, wouldn’t it be nice?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “I have family. Friends that don’t live forever. I have people around me who wouldn’t trust me if I was anything other than the me I taught them they could trust me. I put effort into the short life I have, and I wouldn’t trade that for immortality or for anything.” he looked at me in the eyes, and while his mouth didn’t change, I could see his eyes begin to twinkle with happiness. “As for you though. You woke up here like this. If you want to live forever with the girl of your dreams, be my guest. I respect the hustle, for sure.”
Enpi peeled herself from my grasp and looked at Rogs. “The girl of her dreams?” she said, the tears stopping enough to give a smirking side eye at him. “Jaqi may like me as a friend, but I could hardly call myself the girl of her dreams.”
“I could.” I said softly. Reaching for her chin, I hooked a finger around the far side of her face, and pulled her back to face me with a gentle, slow motion. The look in her eyes was that of a deer in headlights, as I smiled at her. “Enpi, You are the girl of my dreams.” My forehead met hers as I drowned myself in her eyes. “You’re the answer to all my questions. You’re the light in my darkness. You’re the reason I smile, as much as the reason I still breathe. You’re the counter to my flaws. You’re the wind beneath my wings. You are my purpose, and the soul reason I had for pursuing the stupidity of finding myself in this body. You have become my everything, En. And I would do anything to be yours too.”
“I…” She couldn’t form a sentence, and Rogs was beaming, with wet eyes. “I didn’t know.” she said softly.
“I told you before, En. You just suck at listening when it comes to other people’s emotions.” Rogs said, only dampening the moment for half a second. Then her eyes and smile lit up in unison. She leaned towards me and we kissed. It was a long and deep, burning and passionate kiss that lasted somewhere between minutes and lifetimes. Finally Rogs turned to walk away with a “Damn, get a room you two.” and the two of us broke apart to laugh. Not just a chuckle like Rogs was giving on his march down to the tavern, but a full bodied, deep and echoing laugh that came of the pure bliss and joy of the moment. So, get a room we did. We pushed our way back into her house, where the guest bed had been packed away into a closet. I only wondered for a moment if she had thought I wasn’t coming back, or if she preferred I stay in her bed.
Either way, as our lips locked to each other, we found ourselves on the remaining bed. I was pressed flat on my back underneath her, and she broke off the dance between our tongues to gasp for a breath. Holding me down, she blushed and said “I… I do think you’re gorgeous as you are. And I want to tease and play with every inch of you like this, but I want to… I want to see your other half.” she was blushing a dark scarlet as I pulled my top off, and my breasts flattened into a more solid chest. My hair shrunk to a more masculine length, and my face turned back to the chiseled Elf man I had seen in my reflection by the tree.
A gasp escaped her lips as she quickly reached for my face, running a finger down where my scars had been most prevalent. The soft, flawless skin only gently dipped under the pressure of her index, and my eyes found hers when they had finished searching me for the things she remembered of me. “You’re a whole new person… The only thing that’s the same…”
“It’s still me. The only thing that never changes is my personality. All the books and scrolls and archives agree. Love is eternal. And I-” She kissed me hard, trying to stop my sentence there. The smile we both made, mashing our lips together was perfect, but when she stopped for air only minutes later, I finished my thought. “I love you.” I said. “I always have, since the moment I laid eyes on you. You were an angel then, and you’re my angel now. I don’t expect you to return that sentiment now, but I hope to spend all of the rest of our lives together giving you every reason to love me too.” I reached a hand up, drawing my thumb under each of her eyes to wipe away the tears. “No more of those. We’re together now. There’s no more reason to cry.”
“There’s every reason to cry. You’ve put so much effort and time and nearly died just to be something that I could love, when I already loved you before. You didn’t need to change for me.” She said, more tears streaming down her face.
“I wanted to change for you. I wanted to give you the ‘happily ever after’ that I felt you deserved. You may have loved me, but for how long? And at what cost? Love is wonderful, but it can be bitter and painful at the end. Now, we can choose how it ends. When it ends. Or if it ends. You’re worth every ounce of courage it took. You’re worth every death I avoided. You’re worth every uncomfortable or painful moment of my new future, as long as it’s a future with you in it.”
“Shut your fucking romantic ass up and just kiss me, meathead.” She said, grabbing me by my head, fingers on either side of my pointed ears, and pulling my face back to hers. We rolled on the bed, tongues invading mouths and fingers exploring bodies until I landed on top.
I pulled back for a moment, and shifted forms. “Which do you prefer?” I asked.
“I’ll take her tonight, and him tomorrow.” She said, matter-of-factly, as if she knew she could have it all, and wasn’t afraid to declare she wanted all of me.
“I only get tonight and tomorrow?” I feigned shock.
“I’ll take you however you prefer after that. Once you’ve had a chance to explore me both ways.” She giggled. “I know you prefer being like this out in public, but I don’t mind mixing things up in bed, if you don’t. This Elf is pretty cute in both genders.”
I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively and smiled. “I could just eat you up… In fact, I think I will.”
The rest of the night was a blur of fingers, tongues, moans and screams. We woke up the next morning in each other’s arms, naked and unafraid of the future or the past. The knowledge of our passion for one another was all encompassing. Then the morning that I thought couldn’t get any better, became the best moment of the entirety of the tens of thousands of years I had apparently lived. En leaned in close to me, kissing my cheek. She nuzzled her nose into my neck and whispered softly into my ear “I love you too. Forever.”
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