Courtney was a fit of nerves.
There was an odd tightness in her chest that she could neither place nor dispel.
Her face was slightly flushed, and her hands felt awkward and clammy.
Her mind had placed itself on autopilot. She had unknowingly walked into two walls and bumped into three of her brothers.
On the flip side, Lusamine was experiencing the sa, but different symptoms.
Her appearance today seed carefully put together, much more so than usual.
She seed to possess a radiance about her that was not usually present in her day-to-day life.
Both won wandered down the stairs and out the front door, where Abaddon was already waiting with the girls.
Seated on the front lawn was a large, silver spaceship pulled straight from the cover of a sci-fi movie.
Courtney tried to turn around as soon as a ramp was lowered from the belly of the ship.
"I-I think I forgot sothing..." Courtney was halfway back through the door before Lusamine lashed out and grabbed her arm.
"Absolutely not. As of right now, you are the only thing keeping upright, so you have to stay at my side, or I am going to royally embarrass myself..!" Lusamine smiled with clenched teeth.
Courtney hissed back. "W-What about my embarrassnt?!"
"You’re young, you should be embarrassing yourself at this age; it builds character."
"I don’t even rember how old I am!"
"My point remains the sa!"
In the end, Lusamine was the one dragging Courtney towards their eting with long-lost faces.
When they reached Abaddon and his wives, he gave them a single glance before turning back to the declining ramp.
"...You both look like hell."
This was decidedly not what the girls wanted to hear, so Abaddon wasn’t very surprised when they both punched him in the ribs for his poorly tid jokes.
When the ramp finally settled, only two figures walked down the ramp.
Courtney’s body relaxed, but her eyes betrayed a subtle sense of dejection that she felt inside.
Lusamine, however, could not suppress her smile.
As she laid eyes on the man she had thought about for many a night, she felt her heart begin to beat faster than before.
She took a shaky step forward and-
"BESTIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"
A thick bolt of lightning rushed past and knocked the three of them to the ground.
A gloriously cheerful Thrudd rushed up to a middle-aged Fiona.
She held out her arms as Thrudd picked her up and spun her around lovingly.
"I missed you so much!!! I can’t believe you’re here and-"
"I missed you too, Thruddie... but may I remind you that 102-year-old human won can’t usually survive having their spines jostled so suddenly..!"
"Oh, fuck, right!" Thrudd slowly put Fiona down, but when her words finally settled in, she snatched her right back up again. "Wait a damn minute, what do you an 102?! You look like a milf!"
Fiona smiled cockily as she flipped her hair behind her head.
"The miracles of cutting-edge science and universe hopping, baby dragon. I can look this good foreve...."
Fiona’s words slowly trailed off as she got a better look at Thrudd’s incredibly beautiful face and sweet-slling hair. She was exactly the sa as she had been eighty years ago.
"...Well, I guess it isn’t anything to brag about." She sighed dejectedly as she started to turn around. "Dad’s the only one who..."
Shin was currently embroiled in a rather intimate and gentle lip lock with Lusamine.
After all of these years, Fiona had never seen her father kiss a woman. For a long ti, she didn’t think he liked people to begin with.
And now, years later, seeing him kiss a woman whom she knew to be a literal succubus, Fiona felt her last bit of innocence leave her body.
"...Alright, that turns my stomach a little bit, so I’m going to pretend that I didn’t see that."
Instead, Fiona looked past Thrudd to her house.
"So, umm, is your brother around, or-"
"Please don’t." Thrudd held up her hand.
"I just wanna say hi!"
"Yeah, but with what set of lips?"
"...Ight, bitch, you got ."
Thrudd and Fiona giggled together just as they did when they were much younger.
Zahara watched the two of them fondly.
Most of her children were slightly introverted. Nubia and the twins were the only ones who made a lot of friends outside of family.
So, as a mother, it touched her to see her daughter have such a genuine friendship.
Even with such a long span of ti passing between them, the girls were able to pick things back up right where they had left off.
There was little more Zahara could ask for than that.
"Umm... Hey, Fiona." Courtney waved nervously. "Been a minute."
Fiona’s eyes widened. "Oh, my god, COURTNEY! You look amazing, co here!"
Courtney was wrapped in such a fierce hug that for a mont she thought Fiona had developed super strength.
She hugged the old woman fondly for a mont before she decided she could no longer ignore the elephants in the room. Or more specifically, the lack thereof.
"S-so, hey... where are those two..?"
Courtney felt Fiona stiffen in her arms. She imdiately knew that whatever answer she was about to get wouldn’t be one that she liked.
"Oh, well... my brother and sister sort of retired a couple of years back. They picked a parallel Earth and decided they wanted to settle down there..."
Courtney swallowed. "Settle down...?"
Fiona looked uncomfortable for the first ti in her life. "Y-Yeah, ummm...Married. Kids... you know the deal."
Courtney felt like she had been hit by a bus.
In the split second after she processed the information, she put on a deceitful smile.
"Oh, really..? That’s great. I’m super happy for them."
Courtney was so good at acting that she easily fooled Thrudd. Fiona, not so much.
She silently cursed her brother for leaving her to deal with a situation that he certainly should have handled himself.
The hurt in Courtney’s eyes wasn’t sothing that she could miss even with a blindfold on.
"Oh, wait, so if your siblings retired, then does that an...?" Thrudd stared at her best friend in anticipation.
"Ah, yeah.." Fiona stuck out her chest with a bit more pride. "You are now standing before the newest Director of The Shining Order of Sacred rcy."
She hooked her thumb over her shoulder at Shin.
"And that’s my shiny advisor. He takes ti away from the yellow brick road to give a hand when I need it."
Shin gave his daughter a droll, unamused look.
"Kyaa, that’s so cool! I’m so proud of you for... Hey, where’d my sister go?"
Thrudd looked around for Courtney, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find her.
Her obliviousness caused Fiona to sigh. "Really, Thruddie... you should check on the poor girl. I know she must be feeling so kind of way right now."
"What? But she seed fine, didn’t she?"
"No. Not at all."
Thrudd assud a more serious big sister look.
She turned around and ran inside the house after her heartbroken family mber.
Fiona, shrugging, followed behind her with her hands in her pockets.
After they left, Zahara and Ayaana took their turns embracing Shin.
Needless to say, the old cyborg was quite surprised by just how much they had changed since he’d last seen them. He was even more surprised by the fact that they were not exactly the sa won he rembered.
However, the girls seed friendly enough with him. It was as if they were genuinely happy to see him.
When they separated, there was just one last greeting that had yet to be exchanged.
Abaddon and Shin stared at each other for an uncomfortable amount of ti without saying anything.
Their faces were impossible to read. The history between the two would’ve made one think that they were going to start up a brawl at any mont.
"...What’s new?"
Shin shrugged.
"Retirent. You?"
"I’m being blackmailed."
"You? Who would have the balls?"
"Soone without them. Yog-Sothoth is finally showing his head, and he’s scheming of all things."
Shin’s eyebrows lifted. "You’re joking. I thought we would never hear anything from him. We tried to find him for thirty years."
Finally, Shin started walking down the ramp and towards Abaddon. The two of them began walking towards the house where they would likely claim their usual spots at the kitchen bar.
Along the way, their conversation carried on normally with no awkwardness to be heard. Though the context was business-like, the tone was actually quite friendly.
"What’s he blackamiling you with exactly?"
"He kidnapped about 1,500 gods. He won’t release them unless I make a body for him to inhabit."
"I hope you’re not actually thinking of considering it."
"We had a eting today with those who remained. Not many reliable alternatives were offered."
"...Need a hand?"
"I hope you didn’t think I was going to let you into my ho and let you drink up all my beer without helping."
"HA! Fair enough!"
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