Blessed by Night

It had been so long since the group had seen them that they almost looked and felt entirely different.

They somehow seemed older, wiser… and definitely stronger.

"Melanie!"

Celeste came running from her place in the kitchen and nearly tackled her daughter out of the air.

"Hey, ma. I'm back." She smiled.

Celeste was already on the verge of tears. "Where have you BEEN?!"

"Well…"

Apophis touched the ground and Serana came barreling at him like a freight car.

She would have knocked him over if he weren't on the same level of rigidity as an iron wall.

When tackling him didn't work, she went to pummeling.

He caught her hands, and she head-butted him.

...She nearly knocked herself out and she had to be held up.

Thea landed softly in front of Aisha and Aubrey- and it was clear that she wanted to run and embrace them both, but didn't for whatever reason.

"...Give me a chance to explain?" She asked with a guilty smile.

Aubrey looked like she wanted to say no.

However, Aisha grabbed her hand gently and gave her a sort of pleading look that she couldn't refuse.

"...Start talking."

- 4 Minutes Later...

Aisha: "So your entire everything was destroyed and rewritten...?"

Serana: "All because Apophis won a contest..?"

Malachi: "And you guys didn't even remember us until like an hour ago..?"

""Basically."" Thea and Apophis nodded in unison.

Naturally, that kind of information took a while to settle in with the group.

Well... for most of them anyway.

"Good enough for me! I missed you, babe!" Serana leapt into Apophis' arms like a princess.

She immediately grabbed him by the face and planted a big smooch right on his lips.

"S-Serana! Is that really your only question?!" Sei cried.

Serana did a thumbs up without even taking her lips off the six foot dragon man.

Sei just covered her eyes in embarrassment and flopped into Bianca's lap- who immediately consoled her over the loss of her daughter's innocence.

Meanwhile, Celeste was also on the verge of tears as she looked at her daughter's face. "How could you not remember me? Do you know how worried I was about you..!"

Melanie looked older- now in around her late twenties, but she still shared a striking resemblance with Celeste.

"I didn't forget you on purpose, mom. But I didn't remember... anything. Belloc found me wandering in Asgard one day while he was on a rampage."

"Not exactly what I would call romantic..."

Melanie smiled and embraced her mother for what felt like the first time in thousands of years. Which for her, it was.

"Why do you guys feel so...different?"

Mal was the one to finally address the elephant in the room- making everyone else turn to stare at them as well.

Thea smiled bashfully as she pushed her blonde hair behind her ear.

"W-We might happen to be a little bit older... And-"

"They're just like me."

Nyx had been sitting on the sofa this entire time- quietly rocking Camille to sleep and taking the entire conversation in.

But for some reason, now she was finding it a hell of a lot harder to stay silent.

She pressed through the 'wall' in her brain that separated this version of herself from all of the others.

As soon as she did, she was hit with an ocean-liner sized headache and a mountain of information to match it.

But she had her answers.

*Whistle* "A primordial god of the sun, and a goddess of fate... Some real high rollers you two turned out to be."

"Are you proud of me, Auntie Nyx?" Thea winked.

Nyx blinked her eyes several times.

She pointed at her while turning to stare at Thea and Aisha.

"Look, I mean it. If you two don't fuck that girl, you are going to have to pry me from-"

Aubrey: "MOM!"

"I'm just saying, look at her!"

Malachi was beginning to get that usual feeling of indigestion that he got whoever his mother said something wildly inappropriate.

Did he miss her..? Yes. Did he miss this..? No. Not at all.

"Hey, in a fight who wins?" Bianca asked.

"Are you seriously trying to power scale our relatives right now..?" Anna asked.

"Don't shame me, this is exciting!" Bianca pouted.

Unfortunately for her, neither Apophis or his sister seemed like they were going to answer that question either.

Thea picked up a bottle of liquor and smiled at everyone reassuringly. "So, what are we drinking?"

-

About an hour later, Camille had already been put down while the adults held a small drinking party.

While Apophis was getting felt up by Serana and Celeste was catching up on all of the motherly hugs that she had missed, Thea was trying to make up with the pair of beautiful women whom she had been painfully separated from.

"So... Is the other dimension still thriving well?" She asked awkwardly.

"...It is actually." Aisha realized. "How is that possible?"

"I-I guess when our realities were broken off, my realm was caught somewhere in limbo. And since several of your members still had keys to enter, then they were fine... I'm just glad that everything worked out." she sighed in relief.

Aubrey wasn't quite old enough to drink yet, so she nonchalantly sipped from a soda can while avoiding Thea's pleading gaze.

Aisha was seemingly much less upset, but it was clear that she wouldn't be making things easier for Thea either.

Even though what happened was not technically her fault, they could not help but feel like they had been abandoned.

So even if it was illogical, they wanted to make the gorgeous goddess sweat, if even for a moment.

And judging by the look she currently wore on her face, it was working extremely well.

"Don't be like that, my dears… I will do anything that you ask if you would only grant me your forgiveness just this one time."

Aubrey was a bit closer to caving than she wanted to admit. Aisha was too, her poker face was just better.

But all of the sudden, a single idea popped into Aisha's mind that made her look at Thea in a completely different light.

"You really want our forgiveness..?"

Continue your journey on m|v-l'e -NovelBin.net

"Of course I do." Thea kneeled and took both of the girls' hands.

"Okay then… then we need your help with one very important favor…"