After a full hour spent basking in the fragmented silence of the Dimensional Gap—chatting with her lazy, oversized lizard uncle and lounging on a floating boulder like the wrathful goddess she was—Hespera eventually stretched her arms over her head and gave a languid sigh.
"Well… as satisfying as all this has been, I promised Mom I'd be home for dinner. She'll pout if I'm late."
Great Red chuckled, the sound like a volcano exhaling smoke. "Tell Ophis I said hi. And that her daughter is terrifying."
"She knows," Hespera smirked. "She's proud."
"I'd be too. Just don't blow up any pantheons without me."
"No promises~"
With one final smirk and a snap of her fingers, she summoned a rift—a spiraling gate lined with silver thorns and chaos blossoms, a signature only she could weave. She stepped through, her wings folding back into her form, her coat fluttering behind her like a whisper of divinity and sin.
The mansion was quiet.
The familiar scent of lavender tea and Ophis's cinnamon-something experiment drifted through the air. Hespera's boots clicked softly against the marble stairs as she descended from the upstairs portal room, brushing her hair back and smoothing down her jacket.
And then—
A knock.
No... not a knock.
Voices.
Feminine.
Elegant.
Chaotic.
Hespera paused at the base of the stairs.
And tilted her head.
Because standing in the kitchen, laughing and helping Ophis cook, were three strikingly beautiful young women. Their presence crackled with old-world energy—older than Olympus, older than the myths themselves.
Each bore unique colors and symbols across their garments—flowing robes kissed by the twilight sun.
And standing with a perfectly calm, deadpan expression beside them was—
"Mom?" Hespera said, brow raised.
Ophis dropped chopped green onions into the pot and looked up at her daughter with all the expression of a resting void.
"These are your daughters," Ophis said matter-of-factly. "They said they missed you."
The three girls stepped forward—one radiant like dawn, one smoldering like dusk, and one serene like the golden hour. They bowed low in practiced unity.
"Aigle," said the first, her honey-gold eyes shining.
"Erytheia," added the second, her dark red curls catching the afternoon light.
"Khrysothemis," finished the third, calm and regal, her voice a velvet hum.
"In the name of the golden tree," they said in unison, "we've come to greet our mother."
Hespera blinked.
Then blinked again.
And slowly turned her head toward Ophis. "Did I… leave something in the garden?"
Ophis didn't blink. "You bled into the earth and made life. It happens."
"…Right."
She looked back at the girls—the Hesperides.
And very slowly…
Hespera grinned.
"Well. Isn't today just full of surprises?"
The three goddesses of twilight watched their mother with expressions that shimmered between awe, nostalgia, and something almost childlike.
Khrysothemis stepped forward first—elegant, reserved, the glow of soft sunlight ever-present around her. "We felt your power awaken across realms," she said gently. "And the garden… it stirred. Ladon trembled in his sleep. We knew it could only mean one thing."
"That you'd finally decided to stop hiding from the world," added Erytheia, her dusky voice low and mischievous. There was a glint in her amber eyes, not unlike Hespera's when she was feeling particularly chaotic.
Aigle twirled a spoon she had stolen from Ophis's counter, honey-gold curls bouncing with the movement. "Also, we were bored. Sooo bored. Ladon is sweet, but he never talks back."
Ophis stirred the pot.
Still silent.
Still unbothered.
Still Ophis.
Hespera tilted her head slightly, folding her arms. "You left the garden. That's… bold."
"We left Ladon behind," Khrysothemis replied calmly. "He begged us not to go, but we promised we'd be back."
Erytheia grinned. "Eventually."
Aigle nodded, spinning the spoon like a baton. "After we catch up on a few thousand years of divine abandonment."
"Touch dramatic, sunshine," Hespera said with a smirk. "I wasn't gone. I was sealed."
"You didn't write," Aigle pouted.
"I was in a cosmic coma."
"Not a letter. Not a dream."
"I was being vivisected."
"Still counts."
Hespera blinked at them.
Then sighed.
"Okay, that's fair."
Erytheia approached her then, the smile fading into something quieter. "We just wanted to see you again. To remember what your presence felt like outside the garden. The tree misses you, Mother."
"…And I miss you," Khrysothemis added softly.
Aigle reached into her robe and pulled out a ridiculously glittery friendship bracelet. "Also, I made this. Don't ask why. Blame Aphrodite. Long story."
Hespera took it slowly. She stared down at the bracelet.
It was made of golden vine thread, woven through with phoenix feather and dark mist. How that was even possible, she didn't ask.
She slipped it on with a quiet, almost embarrassed murmur: "…Thanks."
The girls beamed.
Ophis finally broke her silence. "Dinner's ready."
They all turned.
In that moment, the kitchen became something different. Less divine. Less cursed. More real.
A mother.
Her daughters.
And a dragon goddess stirring soup.
Hespera took a deep breath, glanced between her strange, chaotic little family, and said with a grin:
"Well… let's eat before I accidentally stur up a sleeping god or something."
Aigle held up her spoon. "Too late!"
Erytheia elbowed her. "Not at the table."
Khrysothemis smiled faintly. "Welcome home, Mother."
And for the first time in longer than she could remember…
Hespera felt like she had one.
~☆~
Meanwhile, in the shadowed, veiled realm of Hades—where souls whispered through marble halls and rivers of memory carved paths through eternity—a subtle shift rippled through the silence.
At the very heart of the dark, forgotten palace nestled deep within Erebus, a chamber of black crystal bloomed with ancient starlight. A throne of obsidian and void sat untouched for centuries, dustless despite the years.
Until now.
A low hum pulsed through the walls. The shadows stirred.
And from the cradle of eternal night…
Nyx awoke.
The Greek Primordial of the Night, mother to Death, Sleep, Fate, and all the dreams mortals feared, slowly lifted her head from the celestial pillows that lined her massive bed of nightshade petals and woven stars.
Her long, ink-dark hair spilled around her like a pool of moonless ocean, and her eyes—twin voids glimmering faintly with the dust of collapsed galaxies—opened without haste.
She stretched.
Her arms extended, graceful and sinuous, and the shadows of the room moved with her, as though clinging to their mother's limbs. Her voice was a sigh, laced with ancient drowsiness and subtle menace.
"Mmm… something stirs in the twilight…"
She stood slowly, her bare feet silent against the velvet-black floor as she moved toward the edge of her chamber. With a wave of her hand, the walls peeled back like veils, revealing a view of the Underworld's winding rivers, ghost-lit meadows, and distant pomegranate groves.
But she wasn't looking at the dead.
She was looking up.
Toward the thin veil between divine planes. Toward the rift in reality that had whispered to her during sleep.
Something old had moved. Something that resonated with her… deeply.
Nyx's lips curled faintly.
"She awakend… and plays again."
Her fingers traced a constellation through the air, a lazy web of starlight and silk-thread shadow.
"It's been a while since I visited Olympus. Something tells me she would head there soon."
She glanced toward the distant temple of Hypnos and Thanatos, her twin sons. "And Death has already gone to greet her…"
Nyx tilted her head. "Perhaps I should pay a visit too."
She turned, a cloak of night wrapping around her shoulders—alive, breathing, made of whispering stars.
Her voice drifted into the dark as her form began to dissolve into shimmering smoke.
"No, I think I'll wait till I can sense her aura in Olympus. That way, I can watch little Zeus get punished."
And with that, Nyx vanished into shadow, leaving only a ripple of silence in her wake.