Blessed by Night

A key turned within a lock and Malachi and Anna stepped into their family home.

As soon as they passed the threshold, they heard a pop and a wave of confetti splashed them both in the face.

"Woohoo! A round of applause for the super couple, how do they do it, folks?! They just make it look so damn easy!"

Anna picked confetti out of her hair and cleavage.

"Nice to see you, Serana. What are you doing back here so soon?"

"WHY does everyone keep asking me that, gosh! It's like you guys don't even want me to move back in!"

"You're moving back in??" Anna paused.

Malachi poked his head out from behind her. "I thought you guys couldn't get divorced...?"

Malachi and Anna each placed a hand on Serana's shoulders. Their eyes contained an immense amount of pity.

Anna: "Don't worry. Men are trash anyway."

Malachi: "Hey."

Anna: "Not you, Boo-Boo-Bear.

Malachi: "A-Anyway, you can stay here as long as you need. No questions asked."

Serana trembled a bit as she showed a smile that was not a smile.

-

Camille wandered over to both of her parents while they were on the floor groaning and holding their heads.

She leaned onto Anna's stomach like she wanted attention. Nudging her cheeks with fingers that smelled distinctly of Cheetos and apple juice.

"Mom an dad were on tv." She said.

Anna slowly uncovered her face and forced herself to smile. Camille just pretended that she couldn't see the large red spot growing on her head.

"Oh yeah? Were we cool?"

"Super cool." Cami nodded.

"Aww. Thank you, sweetness." Anna sat up and kissed Camille on the cheek. "You know what that means, right?

When you start school in two days, you're going to have a famous mom. But unlike me, you're actually going to know about it."

"THAT'S NOT FUNNY!" Joanne yelled from the other room.

"Joking about my trauma is how I heal, Mom!" Anna yelled back.

Malachi was positive that he actually heard Joanne's lifespan shorten by a few years. He sat up to go rub her back in the hopes of delaying the process.

Cami looked down at her teddy bear t-shirt and a complicated look showed up on her face.

"Mommy... will people actually like me at school..?"

Anna wasn't a very serious maternal figure. Hardly ever in fact.

However, when she heard her daughter ask that question, all sorts of alarm bells began going off in her head.

"Munchkin... Why would you ask that?" She asked while trying not to give away just how worried she actually felt.

Camille shrugged nonchalantly as she looked at her tiny feet.

"I dunno... just wondering." She lied.

From one bad liar to a former amazing one, Anna never believed Cami for a second.

She knew that Cami was smart for her age. Supernaturally so.

And in hindsight, she wondered if maybe they had been letting her watch too much of the news because she wasn't a 'normal' child.

But on an emotional scale, Camille was very much a normal child.

This nervousness that she usually never displayed was a not-so-gentle reminder of that fact.

Camille was suddenly lifted up by her mother and pulled into her arms.

Anna smiled at her softly, beautifully as she rubbed her cheeks affectionately.

"You don't need to worry about a single thing, kiddo. I promise you that as long as you be your natural fun self then everyone you meet is going to love you. Just like I do." Anna smiled.

If Camille weren't a bastion of toddler maturity, her mother's words would have made her cry for sure.

But because she was, she resigned herself to hugging her mother as tightly as he could while keeping her eyes sealed shut.

Malachi, who watched all of this from beside Anna's position on the floor, had his own surplus of questions to ask.

But he saved them for now.

The time for things like that could come later.

-

A couple of hours into the night, the family left the house again. Though they didn't go far. Just to the backyard in fact.

Small torches had been obstructed around a cordoned-off area, and a series of white tables had been set up.

A recently filled lake sparkled beside the property like a bejeweled obsidian.

As she stared into it, Nyx smiled beautifully while she sipped from her wine glass.

"Marvelous... simply marvelous. You all have a very beautiful home."

When Nyx received no response, she looked beside her for an answer.

Anna was standing there in a beautiful black gown that tightly hugged her figure. In a rare change, she wore a bit of make up and even seemed to have put in some effort to make her hair look nice.

Only an event like her wedding rehearsal could have possibly elicited this much work out of her.

"Earth to Annalise~" Nyx nudged.

Anna was jolted out of her thoughts and almost seemed to have forgotten when and where she was. "H-Huh..? Sorry, Mama-Nyx. You were saying?"

Nyx knew that Anna wasn't particularly a scatterbrained person, so her sudden difficulty staying in the moment was of very minor cause for concern.

"Wedding jitters, dear?" Nyx smiled knowingly. "Knowing that you and your mother are marrying the same people can't be easy."

Anna smiled wryly as she looked out into the party.

The guest list wasn't big, but it was enough that this place wasn't exactly dead.

She saw her mother and Malachi listening to Aisha complain about the dangers of dragon diaper blowouts. Her smile became just a hair warmer.

"...It's not that. Granted, it does feel a little weird sometimes, but I think we've both gotten over that a long time ago. Plus, we make sure to keep talking about things and make sure we're always being respectful of one another."

"Then...?"

Anna paused and let her gaze drift towards Camille, who was riding on the back of Lolo, her father's grizzly bear-crocodile lowbreed.

"Be honest with me please…"

"Hm..?"

Anna bit her lip anxiously before she spoke. "Do you think… the girls will get picked on when they go to school..?"

You could've given Nyx twenty different guesses about what was troubling Anna, and this would have been her very last one.

She followed her gaze towards the other side of the party where Cami and Shiro were playing. Nyx's eyes became almost unbearably sad.

"The chances are almost certain." She sighed.

Anna's heart clenched within her chest. "That's it then. We can't send them to school with all those other monstrous little shits. Nadine isn't above kicking kids and neither am I!"

Nyx put her glass down and placed her hands on Anna's shoulders. "Don't panic, dear. But by my guess, Camille may be in for a harsher experience than her sister."

"What makes you say that??"

"It's just the way humans work at this stage I'm afraid. Camille's features will seem unsavory and grotesque. But because Shiro is a kitsune, she will grow up to be so beautiful that the kind of attention she will get might bring her a very specific brand of attention.

"Waiting to hear the part that means I shouldn't panic…"

Nyx smiled delicately and cupped the young woman's cheeks.

"All that you can do is imprint upon them the importance of having each other and loving themselves no matter what.

I know you want to hide them from the world to protect them, but you have to ask yourself if you would really be doing them a service.

If you want, maybe it would be preferable to consider some alternative methods of schooling. Are there any schools that specialize in evolved children?"

Anna blinked slowly as a new line of thought occurred in her mind.

"I don't know, but… maybe there should be."