Over in one of the numerous enchanted forests that occupied the untamed regions of the expanded Massachusetts area, lay the fortress that served as the Wallace Clan’s Ancestral Hall.

Right now a meeting of the clan’s elders and Ancestors was taking place. They’d just found out an interesting tidbit. A piece of information that resolved a question that they’d been trying to discover the answer to, for quite some time.

*************************************************************************************************************

Elsewhere, a certain immortal and his star-witch bride were in bed doing something that they hadn’t been able to do safely for quite a while. Their clothes had been torn off and tossed to the side. Their bed was on the verge of collapsing. Grunts and sighs of carnal pleasure were shared by the eternally young couple as they indulged in each other’s bodies.

This wasn’t just sex. This was celebratory sex because they’d finally found the fourth person needed for them to be able to safely do these kinds of activities without it eventually destroying the man and his lovers.

Then the phone began to ring. At first, they tried to ignore it but the ringing continued. Eventually, the woman sighed and said,

“One minute, hon...I generally don’t give this number out to anyone, so on the off-chance that it might be important…”

The man just nodded and rolled off of his wife. Landing on the bed beside her. Grimacing a little as he realized he'd landed onto a pile of fluids, oils, and ‘used’ whip cream that the cleaning enchantments that had been woven into the bed, were slow to absorb. An issue that was easily fixed with just a thought.

While he sat up in mild bemused to cleanse both himself and the bed, his wife answered the call.

“Margot Kaylan speaking. Who may I ask is calling?” said Margot.

“Margot...It’s your mother,” said a voice from the other end of the call.

“Nope...,” said Margot. Ending the call with a look of cold fury and immediately going into her phone's options menu to block the number that had just called her. Then after a moment’s thought, she used her access to Monty’s data-feed to find and block all other numbers that the woman, who’d thoroughly disqualified herself as a parent, might try to call her from.

“Okay, want to keep going?” said Margot. Looking over at her husband.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to talk about this?” said Monty. Concerned.

“Mhm...Yeah. Maybe later I’ll have a good cry and then maybe when I’ve worked through how I’m feeling, then we can talk, but right now, right now I'd like you to pull my hair, plow me from behind, and make me cum till I can barely remember my own name, never mind this little interruption from she-who-must-not-be-named,” said Margot. Her gaze heated.

Monty’s brow rose and then he nodded.

“Fair enough...If that’s how you want to handle this, hon. Just know I’ll be there for you regardless,” said Monty as he gracefully climbed over his wife and she turned around and got onto her knees and raised her shapely, pale, behind into the air.

“I…*unh*...I know. Love you too, babe,” said Margot. Sighing contentedly as Monty entered her. His weight against her hips giving her a strange reassurance. Making her feel grounded.

*************************************************************************************************************

Back in the Wallace Clan’s Ancestral Hall. Evelyn Wallace, her sister Margaret, and numerous other members of the clan’s senior leadership stood before a council of Wallace clan undyings.

“So…” said Maeve. The junior-most member of the clan’s ancestors, and the ancestor with the duty of dealing with the clan’s younger generation.

“Er...She hung up?” said Margaret. Looking like she didn’t quite know what else to say.

Evelyn watched her sister from the corner of her eye. Trying not to smirk because she too was in quite a bit of hot water. Evelyn hadn’t intended to ever bring the matter of Margot being the clan’s missing immortal up to the clan’s ancestors. As much as Bernadette might have believed that her mother never listened to her, not listening and not acting according to what one has heard were separate things. In this rare case. Evelyn intended to both listen to and according to, her daughter's advice. At least that was the intent.

Then Maeve, the clan’s youngest ancestor, and therefore the ancestor who played liaison to the younger generation, called. Evelyn did her best to equivocate and avoid spilling the means the ancestor’s higher cultivation made it impossible for Evelyn to lie or hide anything.

Now Evelyn was essentially on trial for ruining a major opportunity for the clan. While Margaret, as high and haughty as she generally was, had been shanghaied into trying to lure the girl into talking with the family again.

“Well, call back, dammit! Try again!” bellowed one of the clan’s more skeletal ancestors.

Margaret Cooke-Wallace did as she was told, while looking like she wanted to argue, or cry, or run into the arms of her dark-haired husband, Vergil, who stood at her side.

Evelyn watched qw her sister carried on as if she were the wronged party, and she felt more than a little annoyed that the woman didn’t seem to realize her own part in all this. IIt almost felt unfair that Evelyn was the one being forced to wear burning irons.

Margaret’s sheer self-absorption was galling even by Wallace clan standards. It was bad enough that Evelyn was actually starting to feel a bit bad about her past actions. Stealing from an enemy’s unwatched nest was one thing, stealing from a nest that was neglected, abandoned, and completely forgotten felt somehow worse. Somehow gaining additional wrongness, because then it was almost as if she’d harmed an unaffiliated child. A stranger who had no part in Evelyn’s feud with her sister.

Margaret called the number again, and then after a moment, she pulled the phone away from her ear.

“...It says that the number is no longer accepting calls from my number,” said Margaret. Looking thoroughly offended.

“You...give her your phone!” commanded Maeve.

Evelyn jumped as she realized that she was being talked to. She handed her phone to her sister. Then she returned back to what was essentially a magical time-out corner.

“Ugh...It says this number is being blocked too!” said Margaret. Pouting.

This debacle continued for quite some time, with many members in the junior generation being made to hand their phones over for Margaret to try and make contact with her daughter. All to no avail.

“Perhaps...Perhaps, we should have Margaret go in pers-...” said another one of the clan’s Ancestors. A flame-haired draugr.

Just as the red-haired undead was speaking. A presence entered the room. A small creature that looked like a stuffed animal, but show-cased enough energy to kill them all without even the smallest chance of them being able to retaliate or run away, popped into being and glared at all of them with the impassive authority of a king. Then with an incongruously deep and somber voice, the plush beast said,

“My Mistress, the August, and Eternal, Margot Kaylan, Co-Director of the Division, Overlord of the Clockwork World, First Wife of a Sovereign of the Voids, has sent me to inform you, that any further attempts to make contact with her will be deemed as an act of aggression. As far as she and her esteemed husband are concerned there are no continuing ties between this family and herself. If her magnanimity in forgetting your existence and the crimes you have ‘all’ committed against her person, or been complicit in, has not been appreciated...you are now on notice that you are being given the choice to either abstain from contacting her or forfeit your continued existence.”

Then the plush beast was gone. Leaving the entire hall in shocked silence. Evelyn was the one who recovered first.

“Hah...See, you old bat!? I told you! I fucking told you, why would I lie about this?!” said Evelyn. Responding in a manner that was perhaps a little blunter than was wise. The stress of the past seventy-two hours making her a tad more honest than she’d normally be. Especially since she was pretty sure she was either about to die painfully, or was going to end up having her soul ripped out and shoved into some kind of housepet.

For her part, Maeve glared at her descendant and then sighed. Just as she was about to declare the death penalty for the former-clan head, the plush-beast returned.

“My mistress has further words for you, puny and insignificant fleshlings, of the Wallace clan…The wretch known as Evelyn Wallace is to be unharmed. As horrid as she was, as terrible as she was..., as utterly vile as she was,...Evelyn was still more of a parent than the creature you’ve been trying to have contact her...and beyond that, Employee Bernadette Wallace of the Division of Cosmic Artifice, has made good enough of a showing, that harming, or allowing harm to, her mother in this one instance, would be improper…”

Once again the hall was left in stunned silence. Maeve heard a few rumbles of displeasure from those older immortals who’d gone some time without ever being directly threatened and weren’t enjoying the reminder that agelessness was not deathlessness.

Ultimately, though, calmer minds prevailed and it was decided that Evelyn would no longer be head of the clan, but she would receive no further censure. Their immortal junior had spoken, and if a single minion of hers was too much for the family to cope with, they decided it’d be unwise to risk her wrath and have her show up in person.

Evelyn passed out the moment she realized that she was no longer awaiting execution. Her daughter, Beatrice, the new Clan head, caught her and carried her away as soon as she was allowed to do so.

Meanwhile, the Cooke couple were sent away as well. They and all the rest of the clan’s juniors were allowed to leave because they were no longer relevant to the conversation.

A disturbed looking Vergil, walked away, with his arm around his wife, and his head made heavy by the realization that his and his wife’s only child apparently hated them quite a fair amount.

He couldn’t quite understand how things had gotten this bad, but to call the revelation deeply upsetting was an understatement. Even if they hadn’t been close, he had never imagined that this distance had nurtured something so toxic.

Even Margaret seemed to have finally noticed that there was something amiss in her relationship with their daughter. Yet, she was more upset that her husband had been upset. Rather than being upset about her daughter's ill-feelings towards her.

Margot and Margaret’s mutual apathy made it impossible for her to be anything more than annoyed by what happened on a personal level. Naturally, this also meant that she had no intention of actually doing anything about the matter. There was no fixing a relationship that more or less never existed.

A bigger concern for Margaret was the fact that this moment would become one of the few things that she and her husband weren’t able to talk about together. It was something that they’d never quite be able to move past. Their differing feelings about their estrangement from their daughter creating a small but noticeable rift between the two of them.