Blessed by Night

Aubrey felt like the wind had gotten knocked out of her body.

A flood of memories both sweet and bitter came rushing back to her mind.

She slowly bent over to pick up the flowers under the watchful eye of Celeste.

"Erm… were those here just a moment ago?" Celeste paused as she suddenly looked embarrassed. "Don't tell me they came from your brother..?"

Aubrey weakly shook her head as she bent over to pick up the surprise memento. "They're from my mom.."

At first, Celeste was confused but then recalled that there was another who held that title besides the friendly ghost floating around downstairs.

"Oh… I see. It's been a while since you heard from her, right?"

Aubrey nodded.

Celeste noticed the card that came with the roses. The sweet writing was very touching.

"Are you.. still upset with her?" She asked.

Aubrey didn't know how to answer that.

If she was honest, she had mostly tried not to think about Nyx over the past two months.

Her discomfort was understandable, and none could really blame her for it.

Nyx was not only a mother figure to her, but on one occasion they had accidentally crossed a line that traversed the boundary of family.

She thought that atleast someone whom she had done that with would never lie to her about anything, especially something so serious as her parents' whereabouts.

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But when Aubrey did finally make an attempt to talk to her mother again, she couldn't reach her.

Nyx's realm was closed off.

So at a certain point she began to feel like… maybe her mother didn't actually need or want her that much at all.

Dealing with all of these feelings by herself was so egregiously difficult that she eventually just abandoned all thoughts and pushed it to the back of her brain.

She never would have thought that Nyx would contact her like this. Or that it would have this kind of impact on her.

Celeste watched Aubrey enter a frozen state like a statue.

She couldn't take her eyes off the black card in her hand, or even take a single step in any direction.

Celeste slowly put down the box she was carrying and tip toed over to Aubrey.

She delicately placed her hand over her shoulder in a warm gesture.

"…Think you might be up for a bit of the wisdom of an old woman?"

Aubrey smiled wryly. "You're not old, Celeste…"

"You should tell that to my back when I get up in the morning."

"…" Aubrey was almost absolutely sure that there were two much bigger and more impressive reasons why Celeste might've been experiencing back issues.

"As a mother who has made her own fair share of mistakes with her daughter, I'm telling you that the times where I have closed myself off from her were because I felt I could not get past my own guilt. It had nothing to do with her.

I-I get that Nyx is a goddess and all of that, but I believe that she still has more humanity in her than she would like to admit. So… talk to her. Discover for yourself whether or not you two can move forward. Neither of you can go on like this."

Aubrey knew that, but there was still just one problem.

"…I can't get to her, Celeste." She reminded in a cracked voice.

Celeste's eyes narrowed and she gave her young acquaintance a playful nudge like she knew a secret.

"Are you really going to tell me that you tried every single method you know of to get to your mother? Or did you stop trying to get to her after the metaphorical front door didn't open?"

"…."

"I thought so. You and your brother have the same sort of guilty look, you know?"

"I wonder if that's the only look of his that you are intimately familiar with." Aubrey chidded.

"H-How many times do I have to tell you, Malachi and I aren't like that! We're not having sex!"

Black smoke began pooling out of Aubrey's left hand.

"Eh? What's that?" Celeste poked her palm.

Aubrey grinned. "A little lie detector spell I found. If you'd have told the truth, then the smoke would've been gold."

Celeste's face became such an unhealthy shade of red that Aubrey actually thought she might pass out.

"How many times has it been?"

"Aubrey!"

"Have you done it with any of the other girls yet or just him?"

"Go see your mother and keep your mind out of what's in my pants!"

Now that Celeste knew that lying wasn't a viable option, she was going for flat out avoidance instead.

"It's clear to everyone that you like him, you know? You should just hurry up and be together." Aubrey shrugged.

Celeste shook her head sadly.

"It won't work, Aubrey. I'm not going to jump into that relationship knowing I could never be sure of my place in it. I need something more stable and clear-cut."

Aubrey opened her mouth to speak, but Celeste quickly covered her lips with her hand.

"Please, don't ask me anything else about your brother. We're only worried about dealing with your issues for today."

Aubrey recognized that she was at risk for doing more harm to her brother's cause than good, so she begrudgingly decided to drop the subject for the moment.

"Now, how are you going to go find your mom?" Celeste asked, clearly desperate to get back on track.

Aubrey smiled wryly as she scratched her cheek.

"Well, don't be too surprised…"

"?"

Aubrey took a step back and inhaled deeply.

"I AM GOING TO KILL MYSELF!!"

"WHAT?!"

Aubrey waited and waited before she eventually burst out into a grin.

"I was wondering if that'd work. Seems as though you aren't that busy, huh? Mom says you only make time to check on stuff like this when you've got nothing else going on."

Celeste noticed that Aubrey seemed to be looking passed her and she slowly turned around.

She nearly let out a loud scream when she saw a man with deathly gray skin and long white hair standing in the room with them.

The man didn't seem amused in the slightest by any part of Aubrey's little false alarm.

"I am very busy, sister. I hope that you called me here for a good reason other than to lay eyes on me."

"Of course! I need you to help me get inside of mom's realm so that I can talk to her!"

Thanatos, the stony and robotic god of death, instantly went pale and looked as if he would rather do literally anything else.