After I finished trying all the dresses they brought, I sat at the chair where mother sat with father in front of me. Mother was still busy shopping, now it was the little two turns to try on the dresses. But they did that not in the same place as me, they did it at the other corner of the store, where it was close to the children section. We still could see them from a distance.
The clerks brought a new tea set for me, and new snacks for me, the tea set that mother used, they took it from the table. Immediately, Adel poured some tea in it, because of all the commotion of trying on dresses, I felt a little bit thirsty and hungry.
“Can you two let my hands go? I want to drink that tea..” I asked Lady Octavi and Adel who were beside me, still holding my hands.
Adel said “No, we can’t do that, my lady…But I can bring the cup to you, so you can take a sip of it…” she brought the cup in front of my mouth with her right hand.
I felt so thirsty, so I took a sip of the cup…
Lady Octavi said “How about some snacks, my lady?”
After I took a sip from the cup, Lady Octavi brought the cookie in front of my mouth with her left hand. I took a bite of it, because I was hungry, I was munching it while frowning my cheeks…
Lady Octavi said “How about another one, my lady?”
She kept bringing the cookies in front of my mouth, I kept taking a bite of it, and munching it with frowning cheeks. While munching it, I took a glance at father, and saw him smiling big at me..
I asked with munching “*munch* Why are *munch* you smiling like that *munch*, father?”
“It’s just cute to see you being spoiled by them…”
“*gulp* How about my dear father, tell them to let go of their hands??” I changed my face to smile more at him.
“Me?? Tell them to do that? No way!!”
“Why??”
“Because your mother, who ordered them, not me..”
Lady Octavi kept putting cookies in front of my mouth..
“But *munch* you are my father *munch*…”
“But…I cannot do that, Aurelia…Because your mother…”
“How about her *munch* *munch*?”
We looked at mother from a distance…
“She will be angry at me, If I order them to let go of their hands from you.”
“But this cute daughter *munch* is so helpless with *munch* *munch* this holding hands, *munch* *munch* Am I better than the mother angry *munch*?”
“Oh my daughter, you don’t know how scary your mother i—” Suddenly Mother took a glance fiercely at us…
“*gulp* *gulp*”
I took my face near to father..
I whispered “What was that, father? Did she hear it?”
“That is your mother, Aurelia..” He whispered back “It’s better not to talk about her now..”
“Right…”
There was no conversation between us, it was just me eating the snacks with help from Lady Octavi, and taking a sip of tea with help from Adel, and Father just smiling at me, enjoying my condition. At some moment, I caught mother talking with the little two, and they suddenly went off like they were finding something..
A few minutes later, they came back to mother, and immediately mother turned her gaze at me, it seemed she ordered them something. Suddenly they came to me, in front of me, they were being shy…They were hiding their hands behind them, I didn’t want to speak a single word to them..
“Sister…Aurel..ia” Aurelio said with a shy tone.
I ignored it…
They looked at each other…
They said simultaneously “We, here…”
“Wanted…”
“To give…”
“You something…”
I said “Give me something?”
They looked and nodded at each other, and showed their hands in front of me…
I saw it was a white hairpin and a necklace with white gems.
“These are our presents to you, sister..” Ophelia said
“These presents are our apology to you, sister..” Aurelio said.
“So we apologize about what we did, and hope Sister Aurelia can forgive us.” They said
I said “Adel, put your hand on Aurelio’s head..”
She put her hand on his head.
“And started to rub him…” Adel rubbed Aurelio’s head “As you can see, mother ordered them to hold my hands until we get home, so I ordered Adel to do this, to show how…Happy…I am…that my little siblings can realize what they have done, and ask forgiveness.”
Their faces suddenly became happy…
“What about me?” Ophelia said..
I ordered Adel to do that to Ophelia too…
“You can put your presents on the table..”
They put the presents on the table, and hugged me. After that they were walking toward mother, and hugged her…
“Is that great?” Father said with a big smile on his face..
I ignored him and asked Adel “Can you keep these presents until we get home?”
“Of course,” Adel answered.
After an hour, We finished shopping. Mother just bought me an entire row of dresses, when I didn’t know if It was suitable for me or not, but it was suitable from mother’s point of view. Because of the amount of what we bought, the owner said they would send all the purchases to the home. We continued to walk in the street, I didn’t know where mother and father would take us next. In the street, I saw the little two in front with father holding hands, and seemed genuinely happy about today.
From a distance, I could see a huge building, where the building was above a platform made of concrete, so there were two stairs in corners to get to the buildings. Because of my curiosity about building, I asked mother who was beside me.
“Mother, what is that building?”
“That’s the temple…”
“Temple?? Are we going in there?”
“Yes we are, Aurelia..”
In front of the platforms, I realized how tall it was, ten times taller than my height. I saw father tell the little two something in front of me, and after that, the little two went off from the buildings with the 2 guards, their maids, and the 4 children. Seeing that, I went to father…
“Where do those two go?”
“I just told them to go have fun in the city..”
“If it’s like that, I will come with them..”
I went away from father, and tried to come with them, but the holding hands restrained me from going with them. My mother was smiling mischievously, even my father was smiling too. Mother came beside father..
I turned my face to both of them “*sigh* Let me guess, mother and father want me to go to the temple.” Looked at Lady Octavi and Adel “and ordered you two restrain me from going anywhere..”
“Forgive me, but it is madam who ordered us to do this.” Adel said.
“Right…” I looked at father and mother “*Sigh* So what’s the occasion for me to go there? Even mother’s smile became scarier than before, there must be something you two hiding from me.”
“My!!! Was I smiling?”
“Yes, you are, mother, and it was scarier than before..”
“It must be my habit to smile, and it made me smile accidentally … .BUT You are so mean, Aurelia…My smile is not that scary, right dear..” Mother smiling at father..
Father said with a nervous tone “Yes…..mother’s smile is beautiful, Aurelia…it’s so mean … .to say that her smile is scary…”
“*sigh* huhhhhhhh…just let’s go to the temple and make this as fast as possible…if you don’t want to tell me the reason why we are here..”
I went to the stairs, Lady Octavi and Adel followed me, so I could move to the stairs…Mother and father followed behind me…After we reached the top of the platform, I was magnified by the building. It was so huge, the building was surrounded by a lot of columns, and It was super mega huge, tall, and spacious. There was a building on each side of it, and it was surrounded with columns too. I saw there were a lot of statues. On the edge of the entrance platform there were 6 statues of women as tall as me with different poses, and there were 3 statues above the building.
“Who is she as the statues in here?” I asked..
Lady Octavi said “She is Delios, my lady..”
“Delios?? What is she?”
“A goddess from the god’s realm..”
“Wait a minute…In the square, there is a Gennaia statue, she is a goddess too, why her statue not in here?”
“Ah..about that Gen–”
Suddenly Adel said “Because she is not a worthy goddess…”
“Not worthy, what do you mean, Adel?”
“Gennaia is a freely Goddess, where she doesn’t care about her responsibility, and just went off to the human’s realm to play around, and the god’s realm was angry at her, making her lose one of her wings.”
Lady Octavi said “But she is the only Goddess, who interacts with humans, whereas other goddesses are apathetic about humans, and just only care about themselves.” seemed she was not happy about what Adel said.
“Interact with humans, it doesn’t mean to blend with humans. There is a line where the goddess needs to know about themselves. Their entity is greater than humans, for what reason a goddess plays with humans, we humans are not an asylum for a goddess who runs away from her duty … .What is she? A child?”
“It was the god’s realm who shunned her in the first place, made her sick of the god’s realm, and went to the human’s realm..”
“Well, it’s her fault because she got shunned in the first place, she was so obsessed with humans, even she wrote something about how the goddess or gods can be in relationship with humans that it was a taboo to think about that, and made her get shunned…”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with that!!! They are a great entity, and they want to have a relationship with humans, what will happen to the next generation from their relationship? They will not have a place to call home, because they are neither human nor god, and they will live long as god, they will suffer from that because they will see all the people they loved and adored around them passed away, making them heartbroke many times from it. Just imagine how many times they will see people around them die, and make them realize it is a curse to be born from the relationship between human and god….”
“But Gen—-”
Suddenly the hands of mother in their face…
“You two, Cut it out…And start moving to enter the temple.”
“But mother, I am still curious about why there is no Gennaia statue in here?”
“Because it is Delios’s area, so there is no Gennaia statue, simple….Now let’s go to the temple…”
“That’s it???”
We were moving on to the temple, and started to climb the entrance stairs of the temple…When we were inside the temple, It was a chamber with a lot of columns inside of it and there were two giant statues of Delios with brave poses. We passed the chamber, moved to the other chamber. In the next chamber, there was another Delios statue with 2 bonfires beside her, but it was bigger than the statue before, and she sat on some sort of throne. In front of it, there was a platform the size of a human..
2 people came to us, and led us to the platform. There were 2 other people at each bonfire. On the platform, One person served me a drink with glass. I looked at mother..
“Accept it, Aurelia…” Mother told me.
I accepted the drink…the 2 people at each bonfire lit it, and the blue flame appeared. The person beside us asked me to drink the drink she offered..
“Drink it, Aurelia..” Mother told me..
I drank it..a few seconds later, I suddenly felt sleepy…The one who offered me the drink, requested me to lay down on the platform…But…..before I did that….suddenly I collapsed…In half unconscious, I still felt there was hands who withhold my body from collapsing to the ground, and they brought me to the platform…
………Suddenly……..I opened my eyes……and realized … .I was somewhere……not on the platform anymore … .I looked around…..there was nothing…..It was empty … .In this nothingness, I stood up…and started to walking….I walking….kept walking…kept walking…kept walking…And…..I saw a figure from far away….I ran at it…I kept running…running…But…I realized…the more I chase it, the more it became far away…I stopped to chase it….And took a breath….When I turned my face from the ground……Suddenly…the figure was in front of me…I took my face up….and saw…
