Wintersea's funeral was small and deeply personal; she was burned and teleported to her homeland. We said our tearful goodbyes and went about the rest of the day, cleaning up after the battle with Slepa and putting most of the damage right.

Slepa's powers were taken away almost immediately after Wintersea died; Flora insisted they were in the safest place they could possibly be. 

A morning some days after Wintersea's funeral, I was in the small library cove when Flora came into the room, her eyes red and wet from crying.

"Flora?" I put my book down.

"Yes, dear?"

"I still don't know the difference between witches and fairies."

Flora smiled cryptically. "Then I guess you'll have to find out for yourself."

I sighed and went back to my book with a small smile playing on my lips. We were back to answers with a lot of grey area.

~o0o~

"I believe it's quite safe to assume that you're the new witch of the cosmos," Nolan's easy laugh and smile were back for the first time since the funeral, and it was nice to see him almost back to normal.

"Sure," I rolled my eyes and giggled.

"It's true!" Nolan exclaimed in earnest. "You can do that weird fight thing, you don't really know how you do it, and you did that weird banishing Slepa from the clearing with one word! One word, Aria. That's insane."

I nodded my head in acknowledgement, slowly processing everything from the passed couple of days.

Maybe Wintersea was gone.

Maybe we didn't really know what would happen next.

But we did capture Slepa. And take away her powers.

And I am the witch of the cosmos.

~o0o~

(FINAL?!!) Word Count: 269

And that's a wrap on the ONC! Thank you guys so much for sticking with Aria, see you on the other side!

Look for Witch of the Cosmos on my profile, coming soon!

xx
C