"Mother... What do you mean Nila is your heir? You already have two cute kids, remember?"

Giselle pointed at herself as if to provide an example.

"Ugh, don’t remind me, you’re both too cute and aware of yourselves. You’ve been that way since you were brats."

Yari seemed monumentally offended. "T-That’s not true!"

"Spare me! Whenever there were bugs in the palace your sister would climb up on the bed and cry, meanwhile you would try to talk to it!"

Solomon turned away and bit his lip so that Yari didn’t see his laughing face. His efforts bore no fruit.

"F-For your information, I only did that because they seemed terrified! It must have been hard for them, being in new places around big things!"

Giselle chuckled. "Is that how you felt on your first night with your young lovers, dear sister?"

Yari picked up a small bit of salt and threw it in her sister’s eyes.

While she screamed, Griselda ignored them both as she placed both hands on Nila’s shoulders.

"You are just magnificent, my girl. A warrior, proud and strong."

Compliments tended to roll right off Nila without sticking, since she already knew she was physically beautiful.

Compliments about her warrior qualities, though, were a completely different matter. At the academy, Everett was able to get his sister to sharpen and polish his sword for two months because ’no one understood a blade like her’.

It only came to an end because Solomon and Dakota exposed his ruse.

"Heh-heh-heh, I am thrilled that you recognize my competency, honored grandmother." Nila smiled cheekily. "You too strike me as a warrior of the highest caliber. One day, I hope to reach your level of mastery."

Griselda looked as if she were going to cry. She began plastering the cheeks of her granddaughter with kisses, uncaring of the blood that spattered them.

It was over a shared meal that the Amazonian chieftain divulged how she had come to live in the forest and the nature of her disappearing act.

Griselda and her late husband were polar opposites.

He was quiet and bookish. She was loud and a warrior.

They only came across one another due to the former’s horrible sense of direction. But after their first meeting, the monarch was sure to get lost rather frequently.

When they were inevitably wed, she was the one to leave everyone behind and live within the castle.

Though this was a union that her husband’s parents never approved of.

Elves have a long history of viewing the Amazons as a very unsavory and savage culture. Just the mere mention of the all-female race has a tendency to make even the largest parties uncomfortable.

Griselda had a particularly hard time in elven society due to the strict rules and expectations.

Every time she left her home, she was forced to put on a mask and act as someone she didn’t recognize.

For some people, her behavior worked to put them at ease. For others, it was never going to be enough. Griselda was terribly unhappy.

After a particularly heated argument one night, Griselda stormed out of her quarters to clear her head.

It just so happened that her husband’s parents had heard everything. And since they were only focused on the way she had talked to their son, they decided to do the responsible thing and separate the two for good.

Griselda only remembered a bag going over her head, and a strange powder filling her nose. She heard the distinct sound of her in-laws struggling to suppress her before she lost consciousness.

When she awoke, she was nowhere near the castle. In a part of the forest she had never been to before.

After continually getting turned around, she finally arrived back at the palace after two months.

"But then... I finally found my way back and everything was different. I tried to look for your father and the both of you, but..."

Griselda glanced off to the side and held her hand against her nose.

She waited until her eyes stopped trembling to resume speaking.

After dinner, in the living room, Griselda sat in a very large beanbag with a freshly bathed Nila, and two full daughters plus the seed that was her unborn grandchild.

"...I wanted to die. I couldn’t get to you, either of you no matter how many times I tried. And your brother kept making the defenses better and better... I just.."

Griselda had to pause again.

She glanced out into the forest at all of the twinkling lanterns lighting up the other huts.

"When I was lost, I ended up meeting some acquaintances. Their reliance on me, it pulled me out of my spiral and gave me something to live for."

Griselda suddenly pulled her daughters in close until their heads were pressed into both sides of her own.

"But I had never once forgotten either of you. And every day for the last twenty years, I have prayed to Muria that you would find peace... and that you would forgive me for not being there when you needed me the most."

Griselda finally let a singular tear fall. The moment became permanently etched within Yari’s brain as the first and only time that she had seen her mother this vulnerable.

With everything that had gone on in her life as of late, somehow this was still the thing that was the most difficult to believe.

Yari knew that her mother had meant every word she said.

She and her sister glanced at each other silently.

Both began to resent themselves. How could they have believed that her mother had just up and abandoned her without a reason..?

So many years of wasted anger... and all of it born as a result of a lie.

She didn’t feel any better even as she returned to join her fiancées for the night.

Solomon and Jiaoying were already lying down on a pallet within a spare room.

The moon shone down on them through the open window, painting the room in a faint blue hue.

Yari placed their seed in a small wicker basket with a blanket. After covering it with a lid, she moved toward the pallet where Solomon and Jiaoying held each other.

After shedding her clothes, Yari crawled on top of the two of them.

Similar to her mother, she hadn’t realized just how badly she needed them until the moment they were in front of her again.

Yari kissed them both as she slept before gently lowering her body on top of the two of them. She kissed them softly in their sleep. This act roused Jiaoying, while Solomon continued dozing.

She sleepily opened her eyes and smiled at the woman she was to marry.

"Rough night..?"

Yari nodded slowly, resting her head between Jiaoying’s breasts.

"Want to talk about it...?"

Yari would have laughed if she had the energy. Jiaoying was so tired she could barely string two words together. The notion of her managing to stay up to chat was laughable.

Instead, she shook her head in refusal.

"Ma déesse...?"

Jiaoying felt her heart skip a beat. "Y-Yes..?"

"I think... I want to stay here for a while."