Disclaimer: This fan-fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine. And can I please say thank you to everyone who has read along, reviewed and hopefully enjoyed this? I’m sorry to leave the Twelvelands, and the main reason I’m sorry to leave is because of all of you.

That is the story of how I earned the right to wear red.

Not by waiting to be saved- though saved I was, not once but many times.

Not by denying my essential nature, by telling myself there was no wolf in my soul when there clearly was.

No, I came to my heart and my fate by embracing who I was, not who others would have me be- Not who others told me I must be-

And I can tell you this, my lovely ones, now that my hair is threaded with winter and my bones are creaking: It was more than worth the waiting.

In the years which followed King Benjamin’s return peace did indeed come to the Twelvelands: The petitions declaring the Cursed to be bound-beyond-law were left to rot and all the people of Summer and Ice alike remembered how to live together, if not in harmony then basic and quiet acceptance. Lady Ororo de Rogeres, wife of the celebrated knight Etienne, was very instrumental in this changeover, to the extent that she is remembered in a land far from her birth-place with more honour than she is in the Spice Fields. There is even a holy well named after her, and she is one of our most famous leaders. Her daughter Becca married one of the Stormholts and sits on the throne to this day, a monument to her mother and her mother’s will to live-

And I can think of no more fitting tribute to the huntress than that.

The Company of Miracles accepted Ororo’s loss easily enough and continued in their travelling. Eventually though most of the members settled down, dispersing like dust on the winds. Katherine Shadowskin caused a minor scandal when it became known that she kept herself two husbands, Gainsborough and Petya, as well as a parcel of bairns. (Katherine being Katherine however did not really care.) Rachenne Summerisle and her twin sister Hope set up the first theatre in the great city of Min Hadyn with their parents, and the endeavour has been a great success. Their mother eventually became apothecary to the King, in case you wished to know, though she mourned her sister’s loss until the day she died, little as Gold deserved it.

And what of me, you may ask, and my Sunlight Lock?

What of that little girl who found herself when she was lost in the snow?

Well, Logan and I were wed, as you probably guessed we would be. We continued with the Company of Miracles for a while, at least until the first child came… And then my Logan, as I had suspected he would, felt the call of the sea once again. So we made our petitions to King Benjamin and Ororo’s fine husband gifted us with a mechanical boat, the likes of which we had never seen before. And we set ourselves upon the waves with it, and made our way to Logan’s home, the Land of Promise to the West…

It was well that we did.

For it was here that I found my true home, as I had once found my true heart. It was here that I grew into my skin, both wolfish and human and free. The years passed, and we became prosperous; I passed from spring maid to summer dam and into winter’s lady without even noticing the turning of the days. For I had a husband who loved me, and I may wish all you others the starlight-sweet luck that I found-

Tis not easy to find it- and harder to keep it- but it is more than worth the cost.

And so tonight I tell you my tale as we sit in the forest. Tonight I explain what happened to Stray, to Logan’s Moonlight Key. My Sunlight Lock beside me, his hand in mine as it has been for so many years now. Silver threading his hair as it threads mine, love in his wolfish, hazel eyes. We smile, for our eldest daughter is on her first hunt and first transformation tonight and we wait to congratulate her in the moonlight and quietness and snow. And so do not worry about me, those of you who have listened; Do not fret yourselves, though I appear to have ended up so far from home. For neither snow nor wolves nor darkness scare me anymore- Love has made me inured to them.

I have found my place and accepted my skin and we are to each other bound.

So listen to my advice, all you spring maids, and bid my husband’s entreaties, all you old wolves:

For spring will come when love is quaking,

And that is the story of Mistress Stray.