“Well, then. Goodnight, Finnegan.” Cedric began to leave, eager to escape the conversation he had been ambushed with before it devolved into small talk.
“…So…” Dyllan spoke up with a slightly uneasy voice, causing Cedric to stop in his tracks. “What now?”
Finn raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno, this just feels like… a really big milestone?” Dyllan scratched the back of his head, struggling for the right words. “All three of us are awakened, now. Do we do something different, or just keep doing what we’ve always done?”
“Hm…” Finnegan leaned back and quietly thought for a while before responding. “That depends on what you think ‘different’ means. Life just isn’t some book with a big villain at the end of it. There’s no happily ever after, it just keeps going until it stops. Sure, everything will be a bit ‘more’ – fights with nightmares will be won more easily, you’ll probably be cleaning the mindscapes you enter more thoroughly… and I guess, eventually, the three of you are liable to go your separate ways – though that’s hardly guaranteed.” He chuckled. “For now, though? Don’t worry about it. Just help people when you can, take problems one at a time, and make the most out of the years that come your way.” He paused his smile almost wavering. “If you need somewhere to start, I’d go with that Madison girl. Me, Jamie, and Chip have nearly got her cornered, but she’d probably take advice from a few peers better than a lecture from old coots like us.”
Finn let out a heavy sigh. Weary, but not depressed. Exhausted by decades of living, but still not ready to let go just quite yet. He still had a few more years left in him, and he planned to enjoy them. “Still, at the end of the day, life’s only got one beginning and one ending. Cut it up into a story, and no matter where you end, it’ll feel unfinished. Because it is. The pages end, but life goes on. It always does – passed down from one generation to the next.”
A note from the author:
Finnegan is old enough – has accomplished enough and experienced enough – that he isn’t particularly attached to his own life anymore.
Still, he’s in no hurry to die.
After all, if he passed away, who would spoil his grandchildren? Tully would miss him dearly, too. What’s more – if he could dreamwalk for one more night, help one more person… would that not be worth another day of creaky bones and uncooperative joints?