Two months had passed since the black leopard had been slain. Eli, June, and Evans got their gold and became the heroes they wanted to be. Being heroes was a good thing; one would be walking in the market, and a woman would approach them with a basket filled with fruits and fine linen, among other things, to show appreciation. It wasn't once they had woken up to find people doing chores around his compound. He had bought a house and moved in with his parents after making up a story about ‘finding’ them in The Forest, which the people ate up, another perk of being a hero. They were still getting adjusted; five years as a leopard changed them. Eli had opted not to learn his magic but instead hunt.
Evans had disappeared almost immediately after getting his gold, and no one had heard from him since. He had bid them farewell, of course, and promised to return if another black leopard surfaced.
As Eli had predicted, June got more options to choose from partly because she was rich but because she was famous too. She had applied for a position in the school she had heard about. It turned out they had a school for people her age, too; for a while, she did not hear back and was just about to embark on a business venture when a messenger was sent from the school to personally oversee her arrival safely at the school. There had not been an open position, but when they heard who she was, it just opened up. It must have taken a while for news of her heroism to reach them.
"Now what?" Eli asked when they reached a carriage at his gate that had been waiting for June. She had been living with him since he bought his house, hoping she would get into the school and not have to buy hers yet.
"I'll see you when I see you," June said as the driver put her luggage inside.
“How long will that be?”
“They said it depends on how fast of a learner I am.”
"It will be soon then," Eli said with a smile. They looked at each other for a long minute before June pulled him close; Eli did not resist. Their lips touched, and everything else was vanity.
"I was just checking something," June said as she pulled away excitedly.
"There could have been magic between us had we let it," Eli said almost solemnly.
“Wait for me.” June was almost pleading. “I will be gone and back before you know it and we can let the magic happen, we are still young.”
“Okay, let’s make a vow here and now.”
There by that path leading up to Eli's house, which became the biggest in the kingdom, a vow was made, a vow to love no other for as long as they lived.
The end
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