A hiss was biting at my lips. Anxiously.

The sting was nibbling at my memory—it was willfully playing with my instincts and itching away at my extrinsic characteristic. And, for just a moment, it was peaceful. The material underneath my body palmed into my hand, like sand, with an urge to burn and crumble at a stranger's touch.

My head was pounding.

There was an unusual film that seemed to coat the entirety of my mind. The feeling was familiar yet inconsistent—much like an ocean, comforting and disturbing alike, that was desperately trying to pull me away. And, eagerly back in.

My eyes flickered open with an unsteady quiver.

"My children often forget that I was the one who raised them." A voice resonated throughout the space, hinting that the area was empty and small. I did not allow my attention to deviate from the woman—the goddess—that was in front of me. Though, it was apparent that the room was dull. "Alone."

There was a sheen of luster that varnished her side profile. Her lips were thick with expression. She continued, "There was no village to raise mine."

I inhaled a deep breath of air. The room was clear, except for the muggy tinge of arcane. An opposite feature to her was that my voice appeared to be restrained, which was beyond unsettling. Though, it was unknown if it was stolen by her, or even myself. Despite having no explanation, she happily fed off my silence.

"They were not particularly fond of villages, anyway, and much of the villagers were far too ignorant to anything unlike themselves." The goddess loudly flicked her tongue, clicking against her central incisors. "That is our shared mistake—the personalities of the humans. My divine relations, they, too, are at fault. We had created them together, each one of us taking turns to forge and mould the concept of humanity. My children, however, they are my responsibility. Mine, and mine, alone. That is the way of both the mortal and immortal world, and everything in-between."

Unfortunately, she was getting full, and fast. Her hand reached out to grab my face, maneuvering her thumb and pointer finger to hold my chin in a tight grasp. There was a low hum that rumbled beneath her words. "I was under the impression that you had a bigger mouth."

There were letters assembling. There were words forming. There were sentences arranging. Yet, they would not escape the cage of my mouth—the same as I would not be able to escape the confinement of this particular goddess. I kept quiet.

She let out a distinctive 'tsk' that crunched beneath her sharp teeth. My chin was quickly freed from her warm clutch, but the action erupted a cold shiver. "It has been a long time since I last experienced silence. There has always been whispers, accusations, and questions surrounding me—about my children. They manage to follow me in spite of adding distance and travelling through various populations. It is unbearable. There has never been a time that I could truly speak, but I feel my voice would be endless if ever given the chance. I could talk about all of my children with honesty and praise. I could talk about them for eternity. But, I loathe the mention of them."

"Áine." The light of her face suddenly radiated against the repetitive darkness of the room. She perked up instantly. The very mention of her name and title, and the respect that came with it, was minor to me at that time. The meaning was foreign in my eyes, simple, yet it meant a great deal to her. I finished, "The Goddess of the Sun."

"My nephew taught you well," Áine's whisper lingered. "I knew that he would, especially with a gift as powerful as his. I am sure that he viewed it as an inconvenience when he was young and it was irrepressible, but he must have mastered it by now. That is the accomplishment of being a deity."

"You are cruel." My small fists clenched as Morpheus' childhood memories saturated my emotions. The pain from her vile betrayal. Morpheus must have made me brave to say this, "You have no right to speak about him—not in that tone and not in that way."

She let a smile of satisfaction capture my curiosity before she shifted away. "Children make you cruel."

"Children like Avyanna?"

"Ah," she spoke without bothering to look back at me. "It seems as though you know more than I had originally anticipated. That means that you have realized that my children are not golden in any other perspective that is not mine. They do not shine as powerful as Dalnim's creatures, nor are they deemed as revolutionary as her son. They are different. Yes, I did not birth them, but I had built them with my own two hands. I had gathered bones, flesh, and endless amounts of blood to construct them. They awoke with the same cry. And, I had fed them, clothed them, shielded them, taught them. It was me who raised them. There was love in my nurture. If they are not my children, then what are they?"

"You must be hiding from the truth." The words that I had spat out in anger were lined with venom. The terror that filtered my chest had disappeared, and was replaced with the torment that Morpheus had shared with me. "There is no way that you are capable enough to raise children."

Aine's nose twitched. "The truth has always been hidden. One day, perhaps soon, you will understand the sacrifice that I had made to ensure the protection of not only my children, but also my sister's child."

"You don't want to protect Morpheus." There was no controlling my disgust. "You want him dead!"

A knife, or a fork, or a spoon, could have easily sliced through the hostility of the air. The lack of retaliation oddly frightened me. The adrenaline that was pumping through my veins had officially worn down. A pit in my stomach started to grow, successfully caving in as I quietly crawled out of my thrill-induced mask.

Why is she not snapping at me? Why has she not killed me yet? Why?

It felt like hours had passed before she spoke again. "My sweet Lyonechka has barely changed. He still has a tendency to hide his things, whether he's locking them in a box or putting them in a secret room. He never did like to share, which I blame on him being the youngest, but that is a trait that he does not defend anymore. He is much too compassionate, too caring, too giving, to let his intemperate nature define him."

Áine did not stop there. "Avyanna was like that, too, to an extent. Though, she was always afraid that if she engaged in her desires, then she would fall victim to them. Her biggest fear was that she would turn into her sister. She did not want to admit that to me, but I could feel her fear. I shared it with her."

"Yophiel and Bakkhos-" she swallowed, "-they just wanted peace. They wanted to stay a family. They wanted to live among ourselves. They did not crave anything more. Ryuu wants that same peace, and he has for a while. I can hear his prayers, how he begs for me to help him, but he is weak against his sister. And, so am I."

"Kovina," the name rolled off her tongue like a forgotten language. "My first born. My miracle. My daughter. There is not much to say about her anymore. Well, that depends on who you ask. However, I do not like to waste my thoughts on things that disappoint me. She is not what she used to be. I have secretly been mourning what Kovina could have been, rather than what she is. That is a pain that I will forever carry."

"She's killed thousands of humans. She's killed multiple of your children. She's probably killed hundreds of werewolves. There is no telling what else she is capable of, or what else she has already done. They claim that she's evil. There's rumours that she's starting a war—worse than the last, however bad that was." Áine was now watching me with eyes of sorrow. There was a heavy ache that was emitting from her figure, which both comforted me and irritated me. "Isn't there something, anything, that you can do to stop her?"

"Not anymore." She shook her head in defeat. "She is no longer able to play the act of an innocent, defenceless child with horrific tendencies. But, it is too late, we are now past the point of no return. She is dangerous—much stronger, both in mind and body, than my other children. If it was just her, then I could fix it, but she has destroyed countless of lives for her personal gain. There are too many involved now."

The words spilled quickly and I regretted uttering a single thing as soon as the thoughts left my lips. It was selfish of me to say. It was wrong of me to insult those I care about. It was immoral for me to wish for such a thing. It was stupid of me to consider it an option. "So, what, that's it? You'll just let her go without as much as a slap on the wrist? There's absolutely nothing that you can do? That doesn't make any sense. I don't understand. There has to be something—to reverse, to erase your mistake? There has to be a way for you to destroy all of your creations-"

"You want all of my creations, my children, to die? Everything that I had a role in creating?" The growl of her voice sounded higher than what I was used to, but it was still gritty and guttural. Morpheus did not share a single trace of resemblance to his aunt, except the primal ferocity that haunted their stare. "You want my Lyonechka to die? My Ryuu? My-"

"You want your Morpheus to die?"

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