Blessed by Night-Chapter 367 Healing Fractures

As Aubrey had already anticipated, Hemera's stories about their mother were neither friendly, nor heart warming.

She wasn't really expecting to hear anything good about her mother, but she was surprised that things had basically been bad with these two from the very beginning.

And unlike Nyx, who didn't remember much due to the shame, Hemera remembered everything. It broke her in a way that she still couldn't properly convey.

Aubrey wasn't prepared to feel this conflicted about her mother's behavior. How could she treat a child like that? How could she say such unspeakably cruel things to her?

"I am surprised at you." Hemera wiped her eye with her back turned to Aubrey.

"Why?"

"I thought you might try to tell me that my experience was just a one-off and that she isn't really like that. Make her seem better than she is."

Aubrey ran her hands over her stomach as she kept her gaze locked on her bare toes.

"I.. couldn't do something that insensitive. You've known her longer than I've even been alive so it wouldn't be right of me to try and tell you about her personality based on my own limited and biased experience..."

Aubrey clenched her knuckles tightly.

"I'm... not going to make excuses for her either. What she did to you was awful and no one deserves to be treated like that. Especially not by family."

Hemera was silent for a bit before standing up and wiping her face.

"I didn't come here for sentiments or gentle reunions, what's done is done. All I wanted was an opportunity to see my son again."

"Will you listen to me anyway...?"

Both daughters were surprised to find Nyx floating above their heads and wearing an expression of deep melancholy.

"Please.. just this once."

"You don't have any right to ask me for something like that." Hemera snorted.

"I know I don't. But forgive my shamelessness just this once and allow me to make amends for-"

"For what? So that you can ease your own guilty conscience? So that you can seem like more of a worthwhile mother in the eyes of your human children than you actually are? I think not."

Hemera started to walk away, and Nyx realized that she was running out of opportunities to plead her case.

So, there was only one thing left to say.

"I-I'll do it!"

Hemera paused on a dime.

She slowly turned around and stared at her mother with no small amount of mistrust in her eyes.

"Do what..?"

"I'll… help you see your son."

Nyx glanced at Aubrey and nodded, prompting the young girl to pop out of the realm temporarily.

With just the two of them here, Hemera quickly abandoned any illusion of civility.

Though there wasn't really much of a lie to begin with…

"Do you think doing one thing for me will make me forgive you?"

"No." Nyx shook her head.

"Then your aim is to look like the sympathetic figure in front of your precious daughter?" The word was like venom on Hemera's lips.

"Aubrey doesn't have anything to do with this… I've simply done a lot wrong by you and I'm overdue for something right."

Hemera's suspicion practically quadrupled.

"You say this doesn't have anything to do with Aubrey, but you wouldn't be treating me like this if it weren't for her. If it weren't for them."

Nyx sighed. "I…won't deny that. But you know what it's like to spend time with humans… their sentimentality and propensity for introspective thinking rubs off on you."

Hemera could not deny that. But she also couldn't believe that her mother had figured it out.

"I thought you hated humans."

"I do." Nyx nodded without hesitation and a dry eye.

"Then-"

"Your brother and sister and the people that they have around them… they're better than the rest of their rabble. They're loving and rambunctious, and silly, and… They inspire me to want to be better."

Now Hemera looked like she had something to say that wasn't a dig."…I'm sorry for telling Arias to kill him. I thought they were just playthings for you."

Honestly, Nyx couldn't really say she didn't understand how someone would reach that kind of conclusion. She didn't exactly have the best reputation with humanity.

"But I just need to ask.."

Nyx looked up at her daughter again and found her with a horrendously painful look in her face.

"Why was I not enough for you to want to be better..?"

Nyx felt like she had been hit by a truck.

She had no defense. Any excuses about insecurities or the whispering of others did not matter.

"…You should have been." Nyx said breathlessly.

Hemera was completely floored.

Because for the very first time in her extremely long life, she was seeing her mother cry in front of her.

And now, she had no idea about where that left them.

-

Arias looked down at the orange jumpsuit he had been gracefully gifted by the state penitentiary.

After staring at himself for upwards of thirty seconds, he could no longer deny his findings.

"…I'm just going to say it. I am not an autumn. You got anything in a nice burgundy or maybe teal?"

Malachi, Morgan, and Awena just stared at the blonde man with their arms folded.

"Okay, fine, I can also do something tan, or maybe even yellow, but that's it. But if you put me in something green, then I will kill everyone in this prison and yes, I am serious about that."

"Arias…" Malachi rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Better fabrics are a necessity as well because this shitty material is really harsh on my skin. You think I wore those robes all the time because they were like socially acceptable pajamas? … Well yes, but I also have standards." Arias huffed.

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"Are you done..?" Morgan looked exhausted enough for a twelve hour nap.

"…And nothing too tight in the crotch because I am in fact a grower and not a shower. There. Now I'm done."

"Does he EVER stop talking?" Awena complained.

"I just did. What more do you want from me??"

"""ARIAS!"""

Hemera's son zipped his mouth up and threw away the metaphorical key.

It was the highlight of Awena's day.

Even imprisoning the former president and his aides for war crimes didn't come with this much of a headache.

"OW!"

The three suddenly looked up to find Arias rubbing the back of his head.

"Don't think you'll be able to fake an injury to get to med bay, Arias." Awena accused. "If you get so much as a fit of diarrhea then you'll have to deal with it in solitary confinement."

Arias could have cried at the blatantly unfair treatment. "You know, Norway has a much more humane and rehabilitative prison system than-"

"You're still in America, shit-bag." Awena smiled coldly. "Prison reform is a long way off here."

Arias seemed a bit flustered, which was extremely rare for him. "Well that's a wildly problematic thing to brag about, but alright… is there like a suggestion box, or-"

"Guards!!" Awena screamed into the hallway. "Someone get this guy behind six feet of concrete before I put him in the ground instead!!" Experience new stories on novelbuddy

As Awena stormed out into the hallway, Arias shuffled over to stand between his only two friends in the world.

"She's feisty…" Arias whispered to them.

"That she is.." He nodded.

"She's good people though." Malachi shrugged.

Arias rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You know, if she just had the right anatomy and was just a couple inches taller, I-"

Morgan / Malachi: ""GUARDS!!""