Devilla
There wasn't much to say about my aunt's place. It was... nice, I suppose? It had four walls, decorated with a few painted family portraits and the occasional knick knack. To be honest, I was a little too stressed out to focus on the details.
It was only just occurring to me that I didn't even know my aunt's name. I couldn't exactly ask, either - not when I'd just been seated at the dinner table, sitting across from that very same aunt, who was now glaring at me from across the wooden surface.
"You look like a smaller version of your mother," my aunt said after a long and awkward moment of me desperately wishing for Chloe and Nivera to get back from the kitchen. Abigail's presence besides me, with her hand on mine, was just about the only thing keeping me from having a panic attack. "Except for your eyes, I guess. You took after my sister, there
.
"
"...Thank you?" I proffered after an awkward pause. "I'm afraid I've only had the occasional portrait to go by, personally, so I'll have to take your word for it."
Rare were my mother's portraits, and even rarer were my dam's. In fact, the only picture I had of
her
was the singular family portrait I'd seen - my dam's arm around my mother, each of them placing a hand upon the latter's belly, with soft smiles on their faces.
Mother's face
used
to grace the currency, as well, but I'd had it replaced with my own image... perhaps in part to avoid feeling her judgmental eyes on me whenever I saw a coin.
"I didn't say it was a compliment," my aunt replied, "though I suppose your mother wasn't hideous."
"Look, Aunt..." Oh no. Why did I open my mouth? Now she was bound to find out I didn't know her name, and-
"Do you have to be so bitchy, Marlene?" Nivera complained, slithering out of the kitchen with a large platter of food in each hand. One was stuffed to the brim with the stuffed pork chops Chloe had promised, the other with thrice baked potatoes. Chloe was following not far behind, carrying two bottles of wine and four glasses while floating a green bean casserole behind her. Each of us was given one of the glasses, except for Marlene who received the second bottle in its entirety. "Devilla's her
own
person, not a derivative of her mom."
Aunt
Marlene
's head swiveled about to face Nivera, and for a moment the two's gazes met - one icy cold, one fiery hot. Then both pairs of eyes seemed to mellow out as Marlene let out a soft sigh. "Fine. I'll try. For your sake and Chloe's, if no one else's... but I'm going to need a
lot
to booze tonight."
"Got you covered!" Chloe said cheerfully. "There's half a dozen more wine bottles chilling as we speak!"
Marlene grunted, plunging a claw into the cork to pluck it out so that she could take a deep swig from the bottle. "...Alright, out with it. What do you want?"
"Who says we want anything?" Abigail asked defensively, narrowing her eyes at my aunt.
Marlene snorted. "Please. If this was just about getting to know my niece, Chloe would have come up with a twelve step plan to ease me into things - by the time I actually sat at a table with you, she'd have found some way to get me relaxed and open to you. This? This is
rushed.
You're after something."
"I'm pretty sure you already know what we want," Chloe chimed in. "Something to do with the name Alira, perhaps?"
"Personally I'm more interested in what you know of my mother and any plans for me," I confessed, shifting uncomfortably in my chair. This dinner felt like a crucible for scouring out the truth.
"Yes, well, lucky for you it's almost impossible to talk about the first without the second," Marlene informed me before taking another swig of wine. "Seeing as how Alira's blackmail material can be traced directly back to your mother's Fallen forsaken interference in my sister's life."
"Alira
blackmailed
you into staying away from me?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. That was certainly unexpected.
Then again, I wasn't entirely sure
what
I expected her reason to be.
"I've heard that Alira was a big proponent of isolating you," Nivera said with a frown. "I can't
prove
she was the one to come up with the idea, but she's always been my top contender."
"It was theoretically less about isolating you, and more about keeping people from having 'undue influence' over you," Chloe reminded us. "But we all know the end result. I'm guessing Alira didn't want you interfering, Mom?"
"Something like that," Marlene confirmed, swirling her wine bottle around and staring at the sloshing liquid. "And before you ask what she blackmailed me for, I'll repeat myself - it all goes back to that bitch who birthed you."
"You
really
don't like Aunt Grimmilla, do you?" Chloe noted before I could say anything. "Any reason why? Most people who remember her talk about her like she was the next coming of Luci, or something."
"Ha!" Marlene scoffed. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing, young missy! Trying to get more information from me... Whatever, I already promised I'd tell you, didn't I? All about that conniving, lying bitch who took advantage of my sister's idealism..."
"Aunt Issa's ideals?" Chloe pressed. This time, though, I was fairly certain the interest in her eyes was real.
"To start with, get that stupid image of Grimmilla out of your head," Marlene warned, her eyes trailing over everyone at the table before finally coming to rest at mine. "She might have tricked the masses into thinking she cared, but deep down she was just as selfish as you. I'm pretty damn sure there was only one person in this whole world she cared about, and it wasn't my sister, or even herself. It was
you."
"Me?" I questioned, hardly able to believe my ears. "But I hadn't even been born at that point?"
"Yeah, well, you already meant the world to her, all the same," Marlene muttered, lifting her bottle of wine up and practically chugging at it for a moment or two. "Ah... Yeah. She... at first I think she mostly saw you as some sorta tool to use in her scheming. She talked about you all distantly, like you weren't
real
to her. When she actually got pregnant, though, she shifted her tune. Started actually getting
excited
when she talked about your future. She was always going on about the various possibilities you'd have before you... She said you'd be the first Demon Queen to ever truly be
free.
Free of the war, free of
us,
if you wanted to be. Because you were going to be the one to end
