Excerpt: Laeugeo: The Final Dream

Twelve Years Ago (60274 N.G.)

“Zae… I’ve been fired.”
Those four words were enough to completely destroy their comfortable reality. Zaeokou and Raevaal had been together since they were five years old, him always having served her as a bodyguard, and they had chosen this moment to tear them apart? Zaeokou stood at the portal with tears in her eyes, the wind blowing her hair in her face. She was mostly upset that Raevaal was about to leave her, but there was a part of her that was extremely annoyed at the fact that her fucking hair wouldn’t get the fuck out of her face. Raevaal saw this and went back over to her, then forced a sad little smile before tucking Zaeokou’s hair behind her ears. He knew damn well that she could have reached up and smacked him right then, in fact she felt like it, but… that just wouldn’t have been a suitable goodbye.
“I’ll always love you, Zae… I’ll find a way back to you, I promise.” As he kissed her forehead and ran his hand over her cheek for the last time, she allowed herself to actually cry. When she looked back up at him, it was as if she had personally smacked him in the face with a super-powered mecha arm or something. She raised an eyebrow and he shook his head slightly. “No... I’m fine. I’ve just never seen you cry before. To think you’re crying for me is just…”
“I’m not crying for you, you arrogant bastard,” Zaeokou replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared him down.
Raevaal couldn’t help but let out a sad chuckle at this. “I know. You just have something in your eyes, don’t you? Both of them?” This earned him a swift kick in the knee, which made him flinch the slightest bit. He had deserved that one, though. “Sorry, Zae… I’m just trying to make light of—“
“Make light of? You think this is something that you can just make into some huge fucking joke?”
“That isn’t what I meant… but I really have to leave now, Zae. I love you…” He took her left hand in both of his and slipped something on her finger, then quickly turned and made his way back over to the portal.
Zaeokou stared after him for a long while after he had disappeared through it, unable to help herself. Then, she forced herself to look down. She knew what he had done, but she had to look and make sure that it was really there. “A ring…” she mumbled quietly, holding it up in front of her face so that she could see it better. It was a gorgeous, flawless thing. Three diamonds intertwined in a brilliant manner, with a beautiful vine pattern engraved in the thin, white gold band. As she stared at the ring, his voice ran through her head. Even after he had left, she had to be plagued by the sound.
“The most beautiful ring I could find for the most beautiful woman in the world… The woman I cherish more than anything.”
Zaeokou was crying again, and she didn’t even bother to wipe away the tears this time. She shook her head before picking up a rock and throwing it at the portal, hoping against all hope that it somehow hit him square in the back of the head. Too bad she would never know if it did or not. “You son of a bitch…”