After the laughter died down, Ozma felt ashamed of himself.

"But of course," he said hastily, "I should be begging you for forgiveness, though I know I don't deserve it."

He fell to his knees. "I never imagined the damage I would do by my rash choices and the pain it would cause, and using your staff was horrendously despicable, and--"

"Oz, please leave off," Alicia said, looking down at him with some annoyance. "Do you want to waste what little time we have on this? I know all already, that I need to know of your regrets. Do you think I care? I know that there are risks to this job, and let's settle this once and for all--I forgave you at the time. The curse was a hard thing to kick, and I see now that you clearly needed Oscar's help. I'm not upset. I was given the opportunity to be able to help him, and now to see all of you... this is more than I could ask for. God is kinder than we are. I didn't think I could be so happy."

In fact, she was glowing.

"But to see you all in person finally after you won just... I know it's all come right," she put a hand to her heart. "And you may not believe this, as you hardly know me, but I loved you all, as I watched you, and I prayed for you all along your journey."

"Perhaps it was this that made us have so much aid even when we didn't know we needed it," Winter said. "Perhaps, even, it was why Shine and Wally were sent to us."

"You never gave up," Shine said, in awe. "It's amazing..."

Even Shine was amazed.

Ozma looked up.

"Get up already," Alicia said.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Ozma." Salem folded her arms. "Stop groveling."

"This is not about you," Ozma said, standing up and giving her a salty look. 

Salem rolled her eyes.

"Well, she's right though," Alicia said. "I think I've heard enough of your apologies for the curse... Are you all right now?"

"I... think I will be," Ozma said. "The truth is... the curse is gone, and all that feels right now. But I have no place in Remnant anymore. I think I finally know how you felt while you walked the world. Like you never fit. It's like that for me."

"I didn't feel like that all the time." Alicia looked down. "I believe that was why we got on even when we didn't get on. You were just as lost as me--it was a little less lonesome... so I do understand."

She leaned on her staff, and they could see how Oscar had modeled his after it, but hers was a bit older and more classic looking. You knew it was not a Remnant-made object.

"Of course, the entire thing might be different than you think," Alicia said after a pause. "It just occurred to me that there's something in the fact that there're so many roads here."

"What do you mean?" Ozma said, but he looked around and he seemed to understand.

"You mean," Salem said oddly, "he could leave? Leave Remnant, but... not die?"

"I don't know, darling," Alicia said, "that I can say for sure who will and will not die. But I know leaving the world really is not death, not in this way. Unless you're dead already perhaps, and then how do you know what it is? But what is death but leaving the world? In one sense it would be death, but in another, Ozma might go on for a long time even in this body and then forever in eternity, as we all might if we choose it. But for this moment now, I believe the choice is perhaps clearer than you'd think."

"You mean he's going to go to another world?" Ruby asked.

Alicia shrugged.

Everyone looked at Ozma.

"I don't understand," he said.

Shine spoke again:

 "It's a choice, Ozma," she said. "The World Walker gift is not forced on people. It's a high calling. For you it may not be what we are exactly, or it might be, but I do see the sense in it. You're suited to it. You know how to adjust to a new life better than any man in the world. You know different kinds of people. You know many different things. You'd make an excellent World Walker if you had the inclination to be one. And you've shown the conditions of it, a feeling of not belonging in the world you live in. I should have thought of it before. But then even if I had the thought, if I put the idea into your head and it was wrong, I'd have been ashamed."

"Sometimes our instincts understand things our minds don't," Alicia noted. "But as she says, it makes sense. But it is your choice. I believe you can return to Remnant if you want to walk that world instead. You could guide those people correctly, not as you did before, but with the wisdom you now have, it might benefit them greatly. I can't know how long you would live, and only God knows that, but you might live a full life there and for the last time. And that would be one good... but if it's not where your heart is, then perhaps it's best to follow where your heart is leading you? Do you feel you'd be able to do some good somewhere else? Where they don't know you?"

"Where they have no past with you," Salem said slowly. "Where you could just be a man like anyone else... or woman..." She glanced at Alicia oddly.

"Yes," Alicia said. "You too, dear."

"Salem?" Pyrrha said.

"The options extends to you both," Alicia said. "I think it's clear. You're marked. You have no magic. That is good--no one with magic should do this. You have no power at all from your world. Maybe you would fit nicely into another one as ordinary people. Only you could do this, likely enough. But it's up to you."

"You could stay in Remnant," Shine said to Salem. "You could learn to live there again. Try to find a way to be at peace with mankind even as they know you."

"Where the roads go, would there be mankind?" Salem asked.

"Likely enough," Alicia said. "Though who knows what else there would be? I don't know all these worlds myself, just the one that's mine." She pointed to it.

"But they won't know my deeds." Salem looked hungry. "There would be no shame with them... nothing to go off of... I won't know anyone, but that means I could present myself as what I am now, and not as what I was."

"That would be about right, I guess," Wally said. "Sounds lonely."

"But you don't understand," Salem said to him. "I have been alone most of my life, but I have also ruined all the chances I ever had to be anything else. Perhaps, in a world where the past would not tempt me or anyone else, I could try again... I could bring something to them... I'm sure that must be good for something."

"If you were to find people who need to hear it," Shine said, "they would be invaluable. There is always someone who needs to hear what we have to say--in any world, but more people might hear you, it's true, in another one."

"What do you think I should do?" Salem asked her.

Shine hesitated. "I am your guide," she said, "but I am not your ruler. As a friend? I think you should do what will make you the most free. As a DJ, I'd think that you would be well suited to it, I think in some ways, though it would be hard for you to learn other things, but we all have things to learn... As a guide, I can only tell you to do what you think He would have you do."

Salem glanced upwards.

"I think I wouldn't be here if it wasn't a good choice," she said. "And I think it is what I want... Is it wrong to run from Remnant?"

"Hey, lady," Qrow spoke up, "I wouldn't say this usually, but go. It's reality. You're right you're not going to do it anywhere else--it could take decades, even, for all we know. And you're not as young as you were, and you're not immortal anymore."

Winter had to smile at the way he put that.

"So you want to make the most of your time? Go on," Qrow said. "Good luck--or whatever we're doing now instead of luck."

"You should go," Ruby said. "Not because I want to get rid of you or anything, but I think you'd be happier, and it's okay."

"It makes sense," Weiss said. "Much as we wish we could forget, we know we can't completely. And that's fine... if you make new friends. That's how it was for us."

"I think you should," Emerald said. "Someone like you would probably have a lot to teach people. I mean, you helped overthrow gods... That had to count for something."

The others all nodded or shrugged.

Salem nodded. "Then I want to go."

Shine patted her shoulders lightly. "I think that's right," she said. Her eyes glowed. "That's your course." She pointed down one road. It was not the one Alicia was from. "I do not know this world... but here, take this."

Suddenly, she had a Bible and some other books with her in a bag, along with some food.

"No money would work there, but He always sends us someone to take care of us," she said. "Don't be afraid to trust strangers, as long as you have a gut feel about them. It works out usually."

"Here, take this." Wally handed her an envelope. "I had this on me still. I was going to write home later, but you take it, and you can send us a message from where you land if you want."

"Thank you," Salem said.

Then she hugged them. "For everything... You gave me my life back, or at least you helped me find the way to get it. If I can ever help you... let me know."

She stepped back. "Thank you all for understanding and for giving me my freedom. I will try to always remember it. I won't have to hold onto the pain of the past. I should be able to hold on to hope for once..."

"Cheesy," Mercury said.

"Yes, Mr. Black, but there are times when that's all right," Salem said flatly. "I think you can live with it. I'm going to go..."

She looked at Ozma. "You won't follow me there, will you?"

"I... doubt we're being sent to the same world," Ozma said.

"Certainly not," Alicia said, with a bit more pep than you'd think from her. "I think that would miss the point."

"Then farewell, Ozma," Salem said. "And thank you for everything you gave me. I'm sorry I didn't value it more, but perhaps you'll find it in someone else now also..."

"I wish you the best," Ozma said. "Don't be so afraid of people next time, all right? Make a lot of friends. I find that was the best thing about having so many lifetimes, even if it hurt also."

"Yes... I have to work on that," Salem said dryly. "Well... goodbye."

She moved onto the road.

Then she began to walk away, and it wasn't even five minutes before they saw her vanish into whatever world she'd gone to.

And that was the last any of them from Remnant ever saw Salem, personally, at least in their world.

But there were rumors later, perhaps from Shine and Wally, that she did in fact make her way to the new world, which was unnamed, and start up a life there, teaching interested people as she found them about the true nature of God, gods, and men, and there was some talk that she even found love again there and a family and that her previous life became to her as a faint dream that she always learned from but never quite touched her life there again.

But these are rumors, and if the truth was ever confirmed, it was not told to the person who kept the Remnant accounts in any great detail, as communications with worlds are usually meant to be vague for good reason.

But that left everyone standing with Ozma and Alicia still there. 

The look on Alicia's face was one that not many could mistake, except perhaps the very oblivious Hazel.

"So where will you go?" he asked Ozma.

"I don't know..." Ozma said.

"What do you want to do?" Raven urged him impatiently.

"Would it offend you all if I said that, despite my appreciation for your actions, I do think perhaps some space from each other would be best?" Ozma said.

"Only if it wouldn't offend you that we agree with you," Weiss said with her usual sass.

Ozma laughed finally. He'd hardly done this since becoming Ozma, and his laugh was actually a rather nice thing to hear. "Thank you, Miss Schnee... In truth, I think I already knew how I would choose. I just wouldn't like to leave my responsibility to the world--" He paused. "Oh... right... I have none anymore."

"If anything, it's the best case scenario for you," Mercury said.

"Yeah, that's too good," Emerald said.

"If it makes you feel better," Shine said. "His life will not be easy if he goes. But no life is always easy, and I do think the rewards of the tasks are worth it. But it is heartbreaking also. This will not spare him pain. It's about being in the right place."

"She's right," Alicia said. "We are not free of trouble, but we are not burdened by it forever either. We're the same as other people, just between worlds..."

"It's just that I wouldn't know anyone," Ozma said. "Salem is well used to being alone, but I am not. I always had someone to work with when I reincarnated and adjusted. I wouldn't know where to begin alone."

"What if--" Wally began, and Shine shoved him.

"Let him come to it on his own," she hissed.

Oscar thought, then he said, "Here."

He twisted something on his staff and slipped out the cane part of it.

"I left it mostly intact under the staff casing," he said, holding it out. "There's no magic or anything in it, so you shouldn't be able to use it, right? It might make you feel a little more at home."

"Thank you, Oscar." Ozma was quite touched.

"I might have changed it anyway," Oscar said, not wanting to seem too generous and get the attention on him. "I mean, it was a little too odd for me to still have it. So..."

Ruby put a hand on his shoulder.

"Here." Pyrrha pulled out something... It was the old vial of the water Alicia had given them, empty now, but Pyrrha had held on to it. "Take this." She gave it to Ozma. "Perhaps you can use it."

"Miss Nikos, I couldn't--" he began.

"Go on, we'll have our own gifts now, but you might need the help," Pyrrha said with her own sass now.

Ozma nodded.

"Then take this too." Winter held out the box, which she still hadn't remembered to give back to Pyrrha yet.

"Here." Theo tossed Ozma a compass he had on him. "Might need that if you get lost."

Ozma caught it and put it into the box.

"A compass is a great thing to have," Shine said. "I used to use one before my Sight developed as much as it did. It would point me the right way to portal and to find people."

"Perhaps this one will tell me with road to go down," Ozma said.

"What about you, dear?" Alicia looked past them all.

They all turned.

Cinder had been following them but had held back just as before, alone.

They looked at her.

Cinder shook her head.

"I mean, thanks for the offer," she said faintly, "but I don't think I have anything to bring another world. I don't know my own that well yet. I don't know what I'll do, but this is not for me."

"I thought you might say that," Alicia said, kindly. "But here." She pulled something out of her pocket. It was one of those small sewing kits.

She tossed it to Cinder, who glanced at it oddly.

"Are you mocking me?" she asked.

"You must stop thinking everyone is doing that," Alicia said. "I know you don't like the sight of something like that, but remember it's where you came from. If you face the past instead of trying to kill it with anger, you might discover there was purpose after all. And it's no shame to know how to make things or mend them instead of just destroy them. The past is rarely as all dark as we think it is--that's my hint to you, dear."

Cinder looked miffed, but then she put the kit in her boot, lacking a pocket.

Ozma held up the compass, and it spun. There was no north pole in here.

But then it settled on the path that Alicia had come from.

"Well, what do you know about that?" she said with an impish smirk. "I suppose it only fits. They gave you my vessels after all. I could refill them if you came with me."

"With you?" Ozma said.

He looked flabbergasted. "But that was what I would have wished, perhaps... I mean, not that I..." He looked red. "Just that in one way it's almost like fair play. You tried to help me--if I tried to help you, I could... well, not repay, but I could... I grow weary of the word balance, but... it's justice in a way."

"The way to heal pain is to do good in its place," Shine translated for him. "That is true. It's not that you earned it, it's that you learn to heal instead of harm. It's not balance, but it is justice, you are right. And I think it's perfect. You said you need help, and here it is."

"So it is," Alicia said. "Just don't expect me to go easy on you."

Those who remembered he'd once said the same to them laughed suddenly.

"Oh, she'll be hard on you," Mercury said.

"Yeah, kick his butt," Yang said. "Don't hold back. He's stubborn."

"I'm sure it would be enriching," Weiss said.

"I think this is great," Ruby said. "Someone can take care of Alicia too, since we won't see her anymore."

"I don't know if you will, in this life," Alicia said. "Perhaps in a dream. I can't contact your world either, but there are ways. You never know. Still, I'll miss you. Don't forget me, all right?"

"Never," they assured her. And they were sure they wouldn't.

"And don't forget us, Oz," Qrow said. "Just from time to time, you know."

"Yeah, every time you see a crow or a raven," Raven said dryly.

Ozma chuckled. "Well... thank you all... from the bottom of my heart and soul--and thankfully I only have one now."

The team laughed also.

"Maybe we'll check in with you, though," Shine said. "From me. We'll pray for you also."

"Yeah, you'll hear from us," Wally said. 

"Do, do," Alicia urged them. "But we had better go. Too much time in these places can cause you to get a little too sleepy to the world."

In fact, some of them already felt like a nap.

"Farewell," Ozma said.

They all waved at him.

Alicia took his arm and began to walk down the road. Ozma didn't look back.

Then they were gone.

"Is that it?" Oscar asked.

"Not quite," Shine said.

Wally rubbed his eyes. "The mouse," he said sleepily.

Ruby reached up. Little peeped out of her hood.

"Can I go home now?" she asked.

"Yes." Shine pointed to the farthest road on the left. "That one goes to Underland."

"Oh, wow..." Weiss said. "I can't believe I almost forgot about Little being taken with us by accident."

Ruby looked a little teary-eyed, but she set Little down.

"Thank you for all your help," she said.

"Yeah, you're the bravest mouse in the world," Blake said.

"We'll miss ya," Yang said.

Little nodded. "I'll miss you. But... it's time for me to go home. Don't get into too much trouble, human friends."

She waved and then scurried down the path, and she was gone.

And then everyone turned and moved just one step on the Remnant road before they were standing back in the library and no time had passed at all.

And if Ozma and Salem hadn't been gone entirely, no one would have thought it was even real, except that they all looked at each other, and everyone knew they'd seen it.

* * *

Clara was on the point of sending out a bloodhound to find Alicia, as it had been at least 2 hours since she'd gone, when Chip told her he saw Aunt Alice coming with a strange fellow with her.

"If she's found some tramp, I declare..." Clara said. "Of course we must show charity, but I've told her it's dangerous when the children are so near..."

But she didn't think he looked like a tramp. He was too well dressed for that.

Alicia was smiling, and she waved at Clara.

"Clara, come out here," she called.

Clara hurried outside.

"This is my sister," Alicia said, "Clara."

Clara bowed slightly.

"Clara, this is Ozma," Alicia said.

Clara blinked. "He's... oh..." Her mouth dropped open.

"Pleased to meet you." Ozma was not familiar with this etiquette, but he thought this was the right thing to say.

"Oh... likewise..." Clara said.

"I was hoping he could stay for supper," Alicia said, with a wink. "He's not very rich, you see... and I'm not sure a boarding house would take him just now..."

"I... Of course. I'll tell Cook," Clara said after a moment, her housewifely instinct coming to her rescue. "And of course anything else you need, we'd be happy to help."

"Thanks..." Ozma said.

"I'll just go tell Patton..." Clara rushed away to get her bearings again.

"She's really marvelous with this. Just give her a few minutes and she'll act as if she's always known you," Alicia said.

"This will be a challenge," Ozma said. "But I'm game for it... I wonder how I'll find what I need to do."

"It'll come to you without you expecting it," Alicia said cheerfully. "I do have plenty of reading if you wish to instruct your mind till then... but, of course, I'll be going back to my home soon... This is Clara's home."

"Oh, I see," Ozma said.

"But we'll have to get you settled also," Alicia said.

"I don't wish to impose..." Ozma said.

"Oh, nonsense. I imposed on your charity. This is only my chance to pay you back," Alicia said. "And properly this time, too. But tea first... or no... tea time must be past... oh well, supper then. And your clothes also, they look like they should be in a painting."

"I suppose I do look odd," Ozma said.

"Well, they suit you, but the neighbors will talk," Alicia said. "And the maids... Oh... right, we have maids. I suppose you're not used to that."

"I was a king once, Alicia, I think I can handle myself," Ozma say a bit more boldly.

"That's the spirit," Alicia said. "And it's all right to say that to my family, by the way. They're quite used to my idiosyncrasies with pretending to be people--but you must be careful with it outside the house."

"This will be a lot harder to do than I thought," Ozma said.

"Give it a few weeks, it'll be natural to," Alicia predicted. "If you were in my house, I could show you the looking glass I once used to world travel with... That was a long time ago."

"That was true?"

"Of course, it was true. What, did you think I'd make that up?"

"I just meant I thought it was... you know... a metaphor."

"Oh dear, we have our work cut out for us." Alicia was almost laughing at him.

Well, to tell all that happened would take far too long and another book in of itself, but in Ozma's writing to Shine and Wally, he summarized it as follows:

He managed to adjust to Alicia's world rather quickly for him. In fact, it was actually at a timeline and culture that more agreed with him as it was. Less magic and wild inventions, but enough of them for him to not feel he was in the stone ages.

The Vundar family was always nice to him, even if they found him a little odd, and once he settled into the town nearby, he also began to know people and to adjust to their ways. He had learned some skills, luckily, and if he was slow at first, people ignored it because he could tell the most wild stories--though they didn't think they were true, but they still liked hearing them anyway, the children especially.

Alicia remained his close friend for many months, to her sister's annoyance, as she said they should just court already.

Ozma didn't work up the courage to even suggest such a thing till he'd been in the world for quite a while, as he thought she would find the idea too odd.

But since Alicia was someone who liked oddity so much that that only added to its appeal, she thought it was a hilarious joke at their own expense but a good idea nonetheless.

In time, as Ozma wrote, a year or two passed and they were apparently wed.

He told Shine--to whom he often said more things about this than Wally just because she always seemed to understand them so well--that he wouldn't have thought to find this a natural thing, but that he'd stopped thinking of it as strange a while ago, and that, as she'd predicted, his old world seemed like a dream that he'd finally woken up from.

Ozma found work, as he had many acquired talents, and he was able to do them again fairly well with practice. Alicia's family was a little horrified at first at her marrying a tradesman (an issue in her time), but Alicia didn't care in the least and overruled them.

But of the World Walking itself, Ozma wrote little about. Only that they did go on missions still, and Alicia was as good at it as ever, and he was not as bad as he'd have expected after so many years of serving the twin gods, but World Walkers are not allowed to share too much of their adventures directly with each other.

Shine and Wally never pressed him for details or shared much of their own with them, but they did share things that didn't matter that much but did convey that their lives were going on as normal.

If they ever mentioned Remnant it was with tact and not by name, just that the people were doing well or having new things happen and so and so.

Eventually, Ozma wrote that they'd started a small family and he didn't know he could be so happy again after so many years of misery... and it was his own this time. Now he saw it as a gift.

And one day, though this was much, much later in Shine and Wally's own lives and long after the accounts of their other adventures, the letters stopped coming.

Shine and Wally knew that Ozma must have passed on and also Alicia by then.

But they weren't sad.

Everyone had to die, usually, but few people had such a life as those two--or as Salem. Who could really call it loss? Surely they would only go on to another world, an even better one than before, with more adventures, but those ones are always secret to those outside it, or they supposed the would be spoiled for anything in regular life again after hearing them.

And all the other things that happened with Ozma or Alicia would be a part of their own stories and own time, and so this was the last record of it in Remnant.

Oscar considered this to be better in the long run, when he heard it later, because he felt that Ozma's part in his life was over, and it was best to let it stay that way, though he'd miss them, but worlds needed to stay at least somewhat separate, as they all knew now.

And anyway, there was so much else to focus on, he hardly had time to feel sad as it was.

[And while I could end the story here, there's still so much I want to do in Remnant, so consider this chapter more of a detour, not an ending. Back to Remnant next chapter.]

[I hope you all liked the ending for Ozma and Alicia. 

Seemed nicer than him dying anyway. After all the sorrow, why not have another chance at life to do it the right way?]