3- A Bond Stronger Than Blood

A/N : I recommend listening to music when reading this chapter, and when reading at all in fact. Music influence emotion more than you'd think.

music recommended: anything with a taint of drama, with an emphasis on sad atmosphere. Like Release my Soul or Call of Silence by Hiroyuki Sawano ;)

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~In kuoh town.

A woman with long, white hair arranged in multiple braids, one particular such braid forming a crown around her head. And ice blue eyes was wandering around the town. Searching for a worthy adoptive family for her newborn child currently resting peacefully in her arms, child who was warped in a rich blanket of silver silk. While at the same time sporting a conflicted and sad expression on her pale, exquisite face.

Finally, she stopped before an ordinary house while using her power over fertility, birth and love to properly scan its resident, being satisfied with the results. She climbed up the few steps leading to the entry as she gazed fondly one last time at the face of the child she carried in herself for centuries. Expecting to find the child still sleeping like he was since his birth, instead, she was surprised to see a pair of clear, mesmeresing blue and red eyes staring back into her own.

She was happy to at least getting to see the eyes of her in all but blood son. Seeing him awake made her have the urge to say some parting words to him, maybe the lack of family around herself during her self-imposed exil of her home was weighing more on her than she had thought.

Bercing him gently, she began. "You know, before I found your mother dead with yourself in her womb, still not even an embryon at the time, I thought that blood was more important than anything else. Never would I have considered something not of my blood as my family. I decided to bring you to term purely from a simple bout of compassion for your mother and you. But when I realized that your gestation would take way longer than a normal one. I absolutely couldn't bring myself to give up on you. So I waited, and waited, my belly slowly but surely bulging. Something that shouldn't be possible with my domain over birth basically making my womb akin to a separate dimension." She lightly smiled while delicately caressing his right cheek, the child trying to lean on her hand making her widen her smile significantly.

"The anomalies just kept pilling up after that, I felt hungry for the first time in my life. I felt tired often too, forcing me to sleep for the first time. My mobility became precocious because of my bigger and bigger belly. It was like I became a mortal woman. It was all too sudden and made me terrified, but I still didn't even think about abandoning you for you were already a part of me. It was a novel experience, gowing through pregnancy like a normal, human woman. It gave me a unique perspective and a precious lesson about life. Even if for some reason I ever forget my pregnancy of you. I'll certainly never forget the pain of giving birth to you." She said with a wry smile and a grimace.

"I have now a much greater respect for mortal women, I'd never even have thought that such an intense pain existed. Even less that you could experience it for every child you had..."

"That's not even the end of the trouble you gave me, you know? At the moment of your birth, which is yesterday, a strange global phenomena happened, the south half of the earth suddenly found itself covered in the darkest of clouds crepiting with red and black lightnings. While the north half got obscured by white clouds despite them totally blotting out the sun. In this half, white drops of water promptly started raining from the cloud, these watee drops had the property to slowly heal any injury short of lethal as well as ailments. The rain was also scorching to every unholy being touched by it, being like devils, vampires and evil spirits." She took a pause to watch the remaining black clouds in the sky and the various figures skurrying in panic across it. She could see angels, devils, as well as fallens.

"Now, while these phenomena could difficultly be passed off as one of a kind meteorological wonder. The one happening atop the equator was simply impossible to be passed as such."

Tearing her gaze from the members of the three biblical factions toward the south, you could see far away up in the sky, an orange with shades of pink line cutting through from one side of the horizon to the other. Crackling slowly with arcs of orange and pink lightning. Slowly, as in they were moving in an extremely slow manner around the line, seemingly shifting and revolving around it.

"This "thing" appeared at the encounter point of the white and the black clouds and seemed it will stay for a time, in contrary to the clouds who almost all disappeared already."

"Every factions around the globes are currently trying to find the cause of this event and preparing themselves to use a planet wide memory altering ritual to erase the memory of these happenings on every normal humans on earth."

She refocused her sight on the highly likely culprit of the phenomena, the said culprit just innocently blinking his big eyes at her.

At this she couldn't help but lightly pinch his left cheek, immediatly regretting her action for fear of making him cry. But instead of the tears and cries she expected, she received a weird sound of protestation for it.

"Gwaba!"

Took by surprise, she burst into laughter after a moment and brought him to her face, proceeding to rub her right cheek against his. Exclaiming herself. "You're so much cuter than your half-brothers were! It should be illegal!"

The baby, enjoying the act of affection was currently releasing small happy baby sounds.

Separating herself from him to hold him at arm's lenght and staring at her baby straight in the eyes. She said with with a tender smile resting on her face and a soothing voice. "I might not know what you are, and you might not be of my blood, but in the end, nothing matter other that, for me, you are as mine as you are your late mother."

They stayed in the same position for a couple of seconds before the mother hastily brought the child to her chest as a patrol of fallen angels passed just above their position too closely for it to be safe, even with her power concealing them, they could still be seen physically.

It seem that time was running out, she had to leave. But there was a problem.

After actively interacting with her son, she was way more reluctant to separate from him. It was heartwrenching for her when she tought about how she wouldn't see him become an adult and that she would be forgotten by him, making her statut as the one of a mere stranger the next time they met.

Her face scrunched up trying to stop her tears from flowing but not really having to try for versing tears was extremelly difficult for gods.

Seeing the state of his mother, made the baby pull out a similar face. A scrunched up face with tears threatening to fall out of the corner of his eyes.

Seeing this made the mother think that the sight the baby's scrunched up face was funny because she imagined that she was looking like that too. Making her smile despite her current face.

She pulled the baby into a tight embrace. So that she would feel herself as close to him as possible before being pulled far appart from each other by fate.

But as she was relishing with closed eyes in the presence of her newborn child against her. She felt her the boy shifting in her embrace.

When she opened her eyes to see what was wrong, she saw her baby boy trying to free his arms from his silk blanket. Curious with what he was trying to do, she unfolded the blanket around his upper body to reveal his arms as well as the baby set of light blue baby clothes he was wearing.

With him finally freed from his blanket, he immediatly brought his tiny hands to her dress and clutched it the hardest his newborn strenght allowed him to with his fingers. Lifting his head to be face to face with her. He started blablling in a teary face what should only be the uncomprehensible gibberish of babies. "Mwah ga boh laua iou gi?"

But somehow, it made sense to her. And what she understood from it finally broke the dam. Bursting into tears of a golden color, with only the first one being the only normal one.

Swiftly retrieving it on the tip of her right index before it fell to the ground, she then whispered in a saccadic speach caused by her broken heart and shaking shoulders. "No, I can't bring you back with me. It'll be too suspicious to bring a newborn back with me the day after the phenomena. Every factions would scrambled up to investigate us when they are made aware that a goddess in exil for centuries finally came back with a son born on the day of the anomaly. They would immediately make assumptions, assumptions that could very well turn out to be true. Then, who know what they would do in their yearning of making their factions prosper. God know I would never forgive myself if something came to happen to you.

She seemed to ponder on something for short time before bringing the head of her child to her lips to deliver a kiss full of love on it, she then also brought the finger with her first tear on it to his forehead and seemingly used the said tear as the ink to write something on it.

"Here, you'll need strenght to overcome the hurdens awaiting you. As my parting gift and so that a part of me will alwais stay with you, I blessed you with something that'll hopefully help you on your path."

She took a deep breath before forcing out a smile. "You are lucky you know, it's extremelly hard for a god to cry genuine tears. Even if they want to cry and howl in emotional pain, it take a level emotional crisis so high that the majority of gods have never cried in their long life."

Materialising a basket out nothing and dropping it before the door, she rechucked comfortably the toddler in his blanket and placed him in it. The golden tears not stopping for even a moment to stream down from her delicate face.

Summoning in the same manner as the basket a small piece of paper and a pen, she wrote a name on the piece of paper who was currently levitating before her by itself.

Afterward, she pricked out a single hair from her head to use it as the string tying the piece of paper to the basket.

Biting her lips, she spoke out her farewell. "Live well, Julian Håberjorgen, my cute little baby."

After knocking on the door, she left toward nowhere in particular, not daring to glance back at her son. Strangely, despite seeming as reluctant as she was earlier, the baby wasn't making a single sound, making it significantly easier for her to not run right back to bring him along with her and then hiding themselves somewhere unfindable. Making possible for her to raise him to adulthood herself and see his precious earlier years.

She shook her head, nowhere would be truly hidden, they would find her eventually.

It was time return to the rest of her family now that she had changed, as she was sure she wouldn't be able to stay alone any longer in fear of losing her will to live.