For a moment, all was silent in the world. The campfire sputtered to a halt, no longer gently spitting embers into the night sky. Demu smiled a soft, blue smile, and for the first time in Elena’s short time knowing him, he seemed almost gentle.

“Well then, go home. Off you pop.” Demu drawled, and with a snap of his fingers the world folded inwards, Elena’s vision fading to black along with it.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The next thing Elena saw was a clear blue sky. All around her the wind whistled through golden yellow stalks of wheat, the comforting sound only broken by Jim’s relieved sigh and a spattering of triumphant laughter from Carlos. It was home. Or, at least close to it, Elena realized. Home couldn’t exactly be called the middle of a wheat field, but she most certainly recognized the object right next to the trio – an asphalt road.

Elena sighed in relief, and, in a clatter of plate armor, she knelt down to rest with her arm on her knees, motioning to Jim and Carlos to do the same.

“Jim, Carlos, best take a seat. It might be a while before a car comes by that’s willing to give us a ride.”

It was quite a while for sure, but the hours passed easily enough and a truck finally stopped with a cheerful ‘honk’ to pick up two men and a women dressed in strange medieval armor. Not even the long road trip home was enough to dampen their spirits.

We’re home.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

In another world, a tired demon with a faint, red scar on his brow stood over the limp form of a small girl. She was almost completely covered with a strange blanket, one that was cut to resemble a crude mockery of a poncho, but the faint movement of her sides told the demon all he needed to know.

“So you were wrapped up in all of this.” The demon muttered, his hands gesturing to the battle-worn pit that yawned out of the ground in an affront to all things natural in the world. “Just like Tim was. A few years ago…” He sighed, loosening and tightening his right hand on the pommel of the scimitar at his waist. “A few years ago I would have crushed your skull like a bug just for being a human. But, perhaps not all of you are irredeemable. And you were a part of Tim’s group, and even after his death, I still think of him as a worthy ally.” Then, the demon knelt down on one knee and lifted the girl’s head with one hand, and picked her up to look the demon in the eyes.

“An ally. No, a friend, even though I knew him for only a few months. A friend of Tim’s is a friend of Mavier’s.”

And thus, Mavier lightly tossed the half-delirious form of Ellie over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and disappeared back to the strongholds of his people. Only, where there had once been a rabid hatred, a race longing to avenge a fallen king, there were now watchful eyes brimming with caution. For the actions of Tim, Ellie, and the Blinders had given Mavier much to think about.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

When the Rat King clashed with the Fetus, the world trembled. The few observers that were still capable of speaking coherent thoughts refused to recall that event even to their grandchildren years later. However, what was known for sure was that neither being was able to completely suppress the other on that day, and skirmishes between their followers continued to happen even years after that incident. Reports of a somber demon brimming with the strength of heroes that fought against a laughing man in a charcoal-black suit would trickle in to the ears of the court in Drassington almost weekly. It was not until a new hero-summoning ritual was held, leading to several heroes being surprisingly found among the population in and around the city that the clashes that shook the very stone in the ground began to cease. And, as the years passed and the local heroes slowly overtook the previous generations in strength, the Fetus was pushed out of the world onto the moon itself, where it presumably still exists with an unknown agenda…

The Rat King, however, despite bringing forth a horrifying death toll wherever pieces of it would manifest in the world, gradually began to show much less activity as the years passed. Many people speculated on the causes, but only Mavier knew the true cause. That cause, however, was only ever spoken to one other figure, one that eventually became part of Mavier’s trusted counsel: a human woman who, strangely enough, was always seen wrapped in a blanket that had a hole crudely cut out of the middle of it for her head to poke through.