I must decide what words will follow.
I need to protect what could be lost.
I'll say sorry today for a better tomorrow.
A simple gesture is a worthwhile cost.

Horribly aware of what could be lost.
Hope is not built on compromise
A simple gesture, a gladly given cost.
I've thought of a way to apologise!

-from The Girl Who Became a Tree by Joseph Coelho

"Alright, here we are, Ma'am."

"Thank you," Maria said. "How much do I owe you?"

She already had her purse open, the coins and notes sorted neatly into separate components so that she could give the amount quickly. Even so, with her stiff fingers it took her a few moments to give the taxi driver the right amount and she tried to make up for it by gathering her bags getting out quickly when he came around to help her out.

"Thank you, dear," she said. "Have a nice evening now."

"You as well, Ma'am."

Clutching her purse as she looked across the road to where she wanted to go, she barely noticed the taxi drive away. She gazed at the windows above the bar, all of them lit softly with blue and white lights, illuminating both the people dancing and chatting and the elaborate arrangements of flowers in wintery colours that sat in elaborate silver vases at the center of each windowsill.

Well, if you go inside, you can ask about that, can't you? Assuming you don't get turned away. She steeled her shoulders and went to the crossing, waiting for it to indicate it was safe for her to go before carefully crossing and staring up at the bar, and the familiar sign: Room 777. She peered through the door, noting how busy it was and wondering whether she would be able to get through easily when she noticed that there was a different sign hanging on the door:

If you're attending an event in our Sunset Room, please use our new side entrance.

Pulling her cape around herself, she followed the arrow to a red door a little further down the street which had a sign carved into the stone above it: Sunset Room, part of Room 777. The door had a buzzer and she took a deep breath before carefully reaching up and pressing it. She then stepped back and waited, adjusting the ties of the sash around her kimono and hoping that it was not the wrong thing to have worn. She'd never actually worn it, having bought it for the previous wedding she'd been invited to and then having not attended after all.

"Hello, are you here for-"

"Yes, Marie Ludmilla Alschild and Zinnia Shoko's wedding reception. I'm Maria Reubenschilde. Marinka-Marie, my grandchild. She said that I would be on the guest list?"

The young woman who had greeted her at the door nodded, busily checking her tablet before nodding and smiling with a practised grin that betrayed nothing. How much does she know about the way things stand between us? Maria stood a little straighter at the thought, determined to not be cowed by people's bad thoughts of her. She was not going to give into such pressure. She was here to try and build bridges, after all. Build bridges and do what the entire point of a wedding was-celebrating happiness.

"Alright, I will show you where to leave your coat and other things if you so wish, and how to get into Room 777 if you want to order drinks from there. It's a buffet, your granddaughter and her new wife have gone for so you can get something to eat right away if you so wish."

The chattering was inane to Maria, unhelped by the young woman's annoyingly squeaky voice but she recognised that eager, innate helpfulness. Remembered what it felt to be like that. So she kept her mouth zipped and smiled and nodded once she'd been shown everything and led up the stairs to the Sunset Room itself. Purse in one hand and gift bag in the other, she initially remained standing as she surveyed the room. She saw her youngest grandchild and her new wife immediately, surrounded by a group of other young people whom she assumed were friends of theirs. The couple were radiant, Zinnia in a pearl-white off-the-shoulder dress with draping long sleeves covered in shimmering feathers and an elaborate feather-and-gemstone headdress while Marie wore a long-sleeved light blue dress sparkling with embroidered snowflakes and embellished with gems, worn with a long silver shawl that was draped over both shoulders and currently tucked into her white floral belt. She had white roses and a few pressed blue blossoms in her hair, worn loose and tumbling over her shoulders and Maria felt her chest hurt at the sight, remembering the day that her daughter-Marie's mother-had gotten married. Remembering her own wedding day, and how radiant Félicité had looked. Oh, how she missed them both.

She sighed and studied the decorations, which, as expected were very wintery. Although a number of Winterlight branches had been arranged and decorated with ribbons and chains of beads, this was not a specifically Winterlight themed wedding though, she knew. Marie had just always loved the season, as did Zinnia. Most of the Winterlight branches had been cut from ordinary trees, but some had unusual colours which suggested that these were trees that had been the results of grafting with the World Trees. The gift table was one such place, the Winterlight branches there being from the Snow Larch and from the Midnight Ash grafted from Professor Nyamai's tree. They were sparkly and eye-catching, but she studiously avoided looking at them as she went to put down her gift of a lantern, wondering whether the gift would be liked. She remembered getting a lot at her own wedding, and had given a lantern both at Melisande's wedding and at Felix's. She would have given a lantern at Julien's, but that was best not thought about. Instead, as she left the gift table and started looking around at the people, remembering her own wedding. It had been at the height of the Crane Moon, she and Félicité had had a lot of auspicious symbols and pink flowers, and the reception had been outdoors under a glorious midmorning sun. That did not mean this was not beautiful. If anything, she liked this precisely because it was different.

She recognised some of Félicité's relatives dancing aimlessly to the music and by the buffet table, she saw one of her grandsons, Felix, stacking his plate with snacks while nearby his husband Takuya and her son-in-law Alexei entertained some of the child guests. She decided to go and talk to Felix first before approaching anybody else and began to make her way across the room, but as she did so, something crashed into her legs.

"Ooof."

She bent down and saw a small child looking up at her, wide-eyed. She had never met the child, but knew instantly who she was and despite the way her knees creaked in protest, she knelt down to be at the same height as the child:

"Hi there, Dove."

"How'd you know my name?" the child demanded, hugging a teddy bear (which, Maria noted, was also apparently dressed for the wedding in a tiny sparkly red dress that matched her own) close to the chest.

"Maria." A voice intoned before she could find an answer.

Maria looked up and saw her eldest grandchild, Julien, striding up to them both while carrying a smaller child, another girl with curly hair and also carrying a teddy bear wearing a dress that matched hers (this one pink and very frilly). Behind him, his wife Clio followed, staring warily at her.

"Hello Julien, Clio." Maria smiled gently, carefully. "And hello there, little one. You must be Sparrow."

The child Julien was carrying immediately buried her face in Julien's shoulder and he turned away slightly, as if to protect her.

"Maria, I won't have you saying anything-"

"They're beautiful," she said quickly. "They're lovely. Whose idea was it to dress the teddies?"

"Mine!" Dove said. "Couldn't leave them at home, they'd be lonely."

"You are quite right about that."

"Dove, take your sister and find Finch and Starling. They might still be with Uncle Takuya."

As Clio said this, she gently took Sparrow from Julien's arms and set her down, and waited until she'd seen the two children scramble over to where Takuya was before turning to Maria, who slowly got up, her knees protesting once again.

"You have every right to still be upset with me," Maria said. "But I promise you, I'm not here to cause any trouble. I'm just here to celebrate our Marinka's marriage."

"And the only reason I'm not going to ask you to leave is because Marinka wanted you here," Julien said icily. "Even despite the fact she invited you meant that Aliénor decided she wouldn't come, I'm sucking it up because it's her wedding. But I don't want you talking to my children, as if you have any right to swan in and act as if you'd been a proper grandmother all along. As if nothing ever happened."

Maria swallowed, her own words stinging her as she remembered them: How could you do this to me? You're dooming yourself, you are! Dooming yourself and poisoning me with it. And then there was one of the worst things that she'd said, out of so many unforgivable things: You'll be tainting your children with this, they'll be damaged forever. Clio put a calming hand on Julien's arm before saying:

"He's right. Any time, you could have come and said sorry and any of those times my grandparents would have welcomed you back with open arms. You know how much Grandma wanted to be able to reconnect with all of you one day, even though she respected your need to distance. She was so excited to realise that you'd become family through us but you know she wouldn't have overstepped your boundaries. You know this, and yet what did you do instead? You trampled over her heart. And that hurt Grandad, too, because anything that hurt her hurt him, too. "

"I know," Maria said. "I know. I was wrong, and there was no excuse. I'm…I'm sorry. I am, truly."

Both Julien and Clio regarded her sceptically, and Maria took a deep breath. She would not cry. She was not the one who deserved to cry at all of this.

"It's too late for that, really," Clio said. "But I suppose there's no point in rehashing it more. At least you're here now. "

Maria nodded stiffly, expecting this to be the end of the conversation when Julien leaned over to tell Clio something. Immediately, she frowned and then fixed Maria with a stern look:

"I'm hoping you're not going to make the same kind of fuss before you've even given your good wishes to Marie, but I don't want you blindsided by this by the way you were apparently blindsided by who my grandparents were."

Dread settled cold in her belly, the exact same feeling she'd had thirteen years ago, when Julien and Clio were preparing to get married and she'd finally learnt whose family Clio was.

"Go on."

"Zinnia, as you probably know, doesn't have actual family so all her guests are friends and some teachers and mentors. One of those mentors is Judas."

The name felt like a stone thrown right at her, hitting the dead center of her chest. Do not do what you did before, do not, she scolded herself.

"Ju-Judas Faroschild? He…he is here?"

Clio simply pointed silently across the room to one of the tables, where a tall, broad-shouldered old man was sitting. He was sharing the table with a number of older people of a similar age to both of them, but though he was listening to the conversation he seemed to be sitting a little apart, a plate of buffet food in front of him. He was wearing a suit, but without a tie and with the waistcoat unbuttoned and the blazer draped over the chair. Maria swallowed, suddenly feeling hot under her layers.

"I see." She said, simply. "And…and Zoe. I presume she is working in the bar tonight?"

"She is, yes. She's aware that you'll be here." Clio said stiffly.

Maria nodded. If and when she encountered Zoe tonight, she'd do her best to apologise properly, to try and not cause any more conflict. As for Judas…she did not know what she would do if she ended up talking to him, but for now that didn't matter. She lowered her head, and attempted a half-bow. A full bow of contrition would have been difficult for her, and she knew it'd be more dramatic, cause needless attention of the type that would anger them.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I am sorry. I think I'll go and say hello to Marinka and Zinnia now, since that is what I am here for."

She left swiftly, and as she crossed the room Marie turned and spotted her, immediately rushing over with a squeal.

"Granny Maria! Oh, I'm glad you could make it!"

Maria gasped as her youngest grandchild practically squeezed the life out of her for a moment before letting go, beaming. Her eyes seemed wider than usual with the glittery make-up around them, shining with excitement.

"I knew I had to try and make it, for some of the time at least," Maria said. "I am only sorry that Aliénor could not come?"

"Huh? Allie?" Marie said. "Oh, we worked that out-she came to the ceremony. After all, you did say you weren't going to come for that."

"Under the circumstances, I didn't want to steal the spotlight from you. How did the ceremony go?"

"Ohhh, it was amazing, everything went wonderfully and little Starling and the others were perfect members of the wedding party-you should have seen how enthusiastically Dove was sprinkling all the petals around. Bless her, she even sprinkled them over the priests…."

Marie chattered on, steering Maria to her friends and to Zinnia.

"Zin, she made it!"

"Oh, I see," Zinnia smiled, though faintly. "I'm glad."

"I'm happy to be here. Congratulations-I am sure that the new deities and the essence of the Goddesses are smiling on you."

I really hope those new deities are there, the ones who have no name but always appear in relation to love. As far as Maria knew, they were positive deities, certainly better at granting joy than she was. Even if she didn't understand what they were or from what magic they stemmed she could invoke them all the same. The Goddesses, she invoked only because they were traditional. In some ways, they seemed to have more in common with her. Sometimes, I wonder if it'd be better if I'd become a tree, too….

"Thanks." Zinnia said brightly, betraying no opinion on any deity or even on anything.

During the short time that Maria talked with Marie, Zinnia and their friends she noticed that her granddaughter's new wife kept looking uncertainly towards Marie, her smile just a fraction too wide whenever she responded to something that she said, keeping said responses short and quick. Maria took the hint and soon extracted herself under the guise of saying hello to some of Félicité's relatives before then going to get some food. Felix was back there once again, and he easily pointed out things that she would like, including some of the herby plaited bread roll and the soup that was serving as the centrepiece. When she sat down with this food, some of the guests from Zinnia's side came over to find out who she was, and finding ways of making sure the estrangement didn't come up proved to be exhausting enough that she decided that an alcoholic drink of some kind was in order.

There had been containers of mead on the buffet table, but not only were said containers such confusing new-fangled contraptions Maria feared spilling the whole lot out, the smell of the spices flavouring the honey wasn't to her taste. A single glass of simple wine would be enough for her, and it would still invoke the right type of blessings for her granddaughter. Besides, she knew other guests were ordering wines or sangria from the bar anyway. I can do this, she told herself. I can do this.

The stairs getting up to the Sunset Room from the side entrance had not been too bad, considering and so Maria presumed that these would be much the same. Opening the door, she could see that unlike those other stairs, these ones were exposed to the rest of the bar, and the move from cool wintery colours down to the rich glowing autumnal hues that Room 777 had been known for was massively disconcerting. More so, because she knew that this was meant to be a soothing place. Her senses could tell that this was so, and indeed they had softened under the effects of just seeing the bar from the stairs, but her heart and mind in all its turmoil still could not understand it. She could admire the achievement that it represented, but she could not understand.

Trying to push down these thoughts as she made her way down, she was vaguely aware of someone behind her, but didn't pay too much attention to this until she actually got to the bar. After staring at the origami crane sculptures for a moment, she chose a stool near the end and grabbed a menu, looking for the listed wines, when someone sat in the stool next to her. She looked up, ready to give a polite greeting only for the words to dissipate from her lips as Judas settled, leaning an ornate walking stick against the bar and adjusting his glasses to consider her, looking more than slightly uncomfortable.

"Did you follow me?" she demanded.

"I did, yes," Judas said. "Though initially, I was avoiding you."

"You…you were?"

Judas nodded.

"I was, yes."

Maria frowned at him.

"What changed your mind?" she pressed. "I was avoiding you as well."

"I am aware, and I would have left it at that unless Zinnia had chosen to introduce me to you. Or even if Marie had. But then it occurred to me-we're the only ones left now."

Maria opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again. Slowly, she nodded.

"Yes, we are."

That admission sat heavy between them, and in that silence Maria studied Judas. His hair was slightly longer now, and slightly wavy. Though it was now a grey-ish white, the gold streaks had remained the same as they'd been in his youth and to Maria's inexpert eye they didn't look dyed in. Although, now that his hair had lost the rest of its colour the gold looked properly gold, rather than greenish. The longer, greyer hair suited him although the wire-rimmed glasses he peered at her through did not. It was strange though, seeing him so old. She found it strange seeing herself so old, sometimes, and could barely imagine what the others might have looked like if they'd reached this age. Of course, Abel and Delilah had only died last year, so if she had not been so foolish she'd know what they'd looked like. She'd have known more about what they'd become, but snippets passed on from Marie and that one sighting years and years ago had been more than enough for her. Too much, even.

We're the only ones left, though. The only ones. Despite everything, such a realisation felt momentous, something she should weep over while lighting incense at a shrine in honour of it. The only ones left, but how did one honour something that one had been pushing away for a lifetime? Maria did not know this.

"Eve's still alive."

Both of them startled and turned to see that Zoe was standing behind the bar, holding an empty bottle of wine almost protectively in front of her as she looked at them.

"She is? How can you be sure?" Judas asked.

"The flowers on Mum and Dad's graves," Zoe said. "She always leaves white roses and tulips, and a postcard for Mum, like the ones she used to send from time to time when Mum was alive. I just add those to the collection."

"I see." Judas nodded.

None of them said anything for a little while, and Maria wondered how Eve felt knowing that three out of the six of them were dead. If she wondered what would happen to her once her own death came, knowing that there was nobody left to remember and mourn her properly. Still, whether she was alive or not, the life she led still meant that Judas was correct. Of the six that had once been the Elite Chess Club, they were the only ones left.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Zoe." She said eventually. "It must have been very hard to lose them both in quick succession."

Zoe stiffened before lowering her head very slightly in acknowledgement.

"Mum's death was fine. Well, not fine, but it was exactly the sort of death you hope for. But with Dad, what was worse than him dying was watching him crumble with her loss. He'd always been so steady, so devoted. I just didn't realise just how devoted."

Maria had not realised either, when she'd heard about it from Marie the year before. She'd known they'd loved each other, but she'd expected Delilah to be the one who couldn't cope with loneliness, the one who'd waste away from love and grief.

The little girl, running up with a bag of apples and hefting it up with both hands, laughing as her mother took them from her and put them in the trolley before the little girl pointed at something on a shelf across from them, asking something which made her mother suddenly hug her and said 'Sure, baby, why not?' before turning the trolley and heading in the direction of whatever it was the little girl had pointed out, their sugar-sweet giggles trailing behind them.

"I am sorry. Not just for that, but for causing them pain in their final years."

Zoe's eyes flared at that, but then she nodded decisively and pointed to the menu with the bottle:

"What do you want to drink? Are you taking it up there?"

"No."

Maria looked at Judas in surprise, and then turned back to Zoe.

"No, we'll finish it down here." She agreed.

Zoe acknowledged this, and then disappeared once Maria and Judas gave their orders.

"Was that…Delilah and Abel's daughter?" Judas asked after checking that she was completely out of earshot.

"That's right, yes."

She could see the next question in his eyes, but he didn't voice it, instead looking around the bar, seeming almost pensive. He did glance at her a few times, and eventually she grew impatient.

"You might also want to know that Zoe's older daughter, Clio, is married to my eldest grandson Julien."

She thought to mention that Clio was also Asuka's granddaughter, but that was somehow less significant. It wasn't something she liked any more than she had liked her being Delilah and Abel's, but even if she was 'core group', Asuka had not been one of the Elite Chess Club, and that made all the difference.

"So you became related to them both through marriage? That's…."

Judas pulled a face at that and then shook his head. Just as he was about to ask something, a different waitress came with their drinks, each of them with a little snowflake cocktail decoration and some sort of citrus garnish. To Maria's eyes, she seemed a similar age to Melisande, though with her glasses and dark curly hair she did not look like her. Her gaze was sharp and analytical, but the smile friendly enough as she left the drinks by them and disappeared.

"And that," Judas commented once she'd gone. "Was Tate's daughter."

"How'd you know that? I thought you were like me."

"I was, for a while," Judas said. "After that first Hotaruhama, I was getting back into boxing and it was easy to make that clean break. But Sado and his crew, I remember liking them well enough, and eventually we ended up back in touch. Sado still dines off of his middle school escapades, let alone the Kawaakari ones, but we have a good time anyway."

The wry smile that briefly crept across his face utterly bewildered Maria, and not just because it was an unusual expression to see on his face of all faces. Not knowing what to say, she found herself looking around the bar. She could see a few other wedding guests further down the bar, some she recognised as Félicité's relatives and others as Marie and Zinnia's university friends, but the rest of the place was at least three-quarters full, buzzing with activity and good cheer. Piano music wove gently all around them, seeming to make the lights glow warmer and amplifying the good cheer-despite her own feelings, even Maria couldn't help but feel somehow above herself, lightened. Taking a couple of sips from her wine, she looked around to find the pianist and then she gawked.

"Is that Lidia?"

Judas, who still hadn't picked up his wine yet, swivelled around with some difficulty to stare at the pianist, staring at the silver hair in a short up-do, the backless dress that exposed backbones and shoulders fragile with age and yet somehow stately with it. The piano was positioned under a light that shone purple and orange, evening-vivid and somehow matching the music that she was playing, her fingers racing across the keys with an ease that belied her age.

"I think so," Judas said eventually. "Far as I know, Lidia and Tate are still working here. Actually…yeah, definitely her."

A pause, and then:

"The others, of course, have done the sensible thing and retired. A lot of the children are here, though. Zoe, Seren. Um….one of Howl's twins, Quiet's eldest, Jun's youngest, Samaa and Miuna…I forget whose daughters they are specifically, but it's one of Ariadne's friends. Then there's….who is it again…oh, Aurora and Tsukasa!"

"Who?"

"Stella's daughter and Ririsa's son. Delilah would have probably known them, wouldn't she? I heard somewhere on the grapevine that she remained friends with them. Then again, they weren't attempting the clean break thing so much as just not wanting to be so tightly linked to all of this."

So many of them, Maria thought, so many of them willing to take on the burdens of our memories. She had heard, through newspapers and the internet and some of the things Marie had told her, that Kerenza Sumire Bright now fully occupied the role Jun had in life, while a good many of Ruby's daughters worked for her with her various charities, many of them strongly influenced by Ruby's Kawaakari connections.

And though the first and foremost thing we want is for them to be happy, like any other parent would, we also want them to know what happened, to understand what it meant and still means and to carry that with them-she stared at Lidia's back, remembering reading those words in that article when Melisande was tiny, wishing that they had not been on a screen so that she could crumple them and throw them away as the rubbish they were, the way she had not been able to do with a certain photograph that she kept as deeply buried in her things as possible. The painful side of it, that's ours and ours only. In that same article, Mist had said those words, and that had been the only thing that struck her as true. All of it, in the end, had been nothing but pain, and she'd inflicted so much of it herself already. She could not see how anything but containing it could ever work, and she'd done a good job of doing so, hadn't she?

Well, yes, until Clio and Julien…but the blame for that still lies with me, doesn't it? Only me.

"What was that?"

Judas had been sipping his wine, and had the glass tipped towards his mouth as he asked this. It took Maria more than a few moments to realise that she had said that aloud.

"Nothing, just…how do you feel, knowing that you're now related to me?"

"If we're being technical, I'm not," he said. "Still, it's closer than I would like, but like I said, we're the only ones left. Does it matter anymore?"

Maria flinched at that:

"We can't forget."

"We can't stop them, either."

Maria reddened at that and very deliberately took the biggest mouthful of wine that she could, though she doubted any of its effects would actually help her. I need to say it out loud, don't I? Actually admit it. Before she could lose the courage she blurted out:

"About fifteen years ago, when Jun Bright was dying. Do you remember?"

"Yes...?" he said slowly.

"My wife was dying too. So was my daughter. Of the same illness."

Judas gasped and put his glass down, but Maria didn't give him the space or time to reply. She could not. Instead, she went on to explain what a blur that time had been, the way all the edges of the world seemed to become sharp, that everything suddenly gained the ability to make her bleed and it took all of her will to get through those days. How nothing had softened when first her daughter, her lovely Melisande Ruth, and then her wonderful, gorgeous Félicité had finally slipped over to the Other Side she had wondered what it was all for.

She'd done everything right, after all. She'd worked hard to prove herself to her family again, working twice as hard as everyone in shrine duties and her studies because none of them had any of the past to measure her by anymore. She had no reputation with them, and she'd had to build that up and she had. Even though it'd stung a little for the shrine and dojo to be left to her in joint ownership with a cousin rather than hers alone, she had made the best of it. Kept her head down, swallowed her adolescent temper and proven herself worthy. Rebuilt the bonds, and better this time. Félicité was the eldest daughter of an artisanal family, one traditional but humble like hers, and she'd liked her immediately although the love had not come fully until the day of their wedding. The moment they'd become engaged, she'd made sure their Intent to Adopt was registered at the same time so that they could start their own family as soon as possible.

When Melisande became their daughter, she'd made sure that she was fed and clothed, that she went to the best possible schools and took the right extra curriculars. Made sure that they created as many memories as possible, and proof of those memories to look at and hold. Instilled the right values in her, pressed the importance of being kind and working hard. Made sure to love her fierce and strong, and to adore the four grandchildren she would eventually go on to have. She had done all of that, and she had kept the past away. Not secret, of course, because such a thing was impossible but she had kept it away. She had kept it away and she had done everything, everything right.

She'd done everything right, and life had flourished as it should have and then all of a sudden it had fallen apart and she had, too. Oh, she'd kept a brave face on it, supported her son-in-law and her grandchildren and made sure the funerals they had gave them the best send-off, that their Last Taste was of the sweetest honey and that their funeral clothes were made of the finest fabrics. But she'd fallen apart, on the inside, bleeding with no respite. She'd gleaned some joy from life when Felix got married to Takuya, and she had started off that way when Julien announced that he would be marrying Clio.

But when she'd found out that Clio was Abel and Delilah's eldest granddaughter, all that had come crashing down and all she could see was it getting worse again. Seen the blood that had coated her hands over and over, how knotted up they had been in each other and she could not see how that could end happily. She had done everything right, after all, she'd done everything right and still things had ended painfully. She hadn't been able to see how anything could possibly turn out right in this way. She'd only wanted to protect them. That was how she had justified it in the whirlwind of grief she'd still found herself in. She'd only wanted to continue doing everything right and make sure that nothing else would go wrong-and everything would, if she was connected to the past again. She'd been convinced of this.

It was only when that whirlwind had calmed, and she found that only her youngest grandchild would still talk to her that she realised just how wrong she had been. Understood that this time, it was not the past that had hurt them, but her. Just her and her choices.

"And now, thirteen years after that, here I am."

"Here you are." Judas repeated.

Maria put down her empty glass of wine and noticed another one. Judas also had another, but he was still on the first. She gave him the side-eye, then did the same with the glass, for some reason thinking about the news reports into Cain's death and how an overreliance on potents had played its role there. She looked over at Lidia, still relentless on the piano and wondered how she felt about that, if it reminded her of Will. A part of her wondered how it was she could sit there so confident in this place, surrounded by the past and losing herself in the music. It was taking everything Maria had to just be here.

But you are here. You are here, and alive and thriving. And Lidia is clearly alive and thriving too. A second glass is not going to make you tumble down the same rabbit holes Cain and Will did, she told herself, pull yourself together. Still, when she took the second glass she made a point of sipping it slowly.

"Did it really come as such a surprise?" Judas asked after a moment, slightly incredulous. "I mean, for all the time your grandson and Zoe's granddaughter knew each other before getting engaged, there must have been clues."

"There were, yes," she said. "But I'm sure plenty of grandfathers are really softly-spoken men of few words, plenty of them who teach their child and grandchildren chess and used those chess pieces to tell them some of the Lesser Gods' myths. Plenty of grandmothers who are cuddly and affectionate, who like to bake. I didn't put it together. Then again, perhaps I didn't want to. I thought that part of my life was over, after all…"

She thought again, of that time a long time ago, when Zoe was a child and Melisande only a baby. She'd almost not recognised Delilah, since she was softer, curvier, thicker around the middle and yet with something a great deal freer in her expression, the tone of laughter having switched from the cloying syrup of the Elite Chess Club days to clear glass bells. But it had been her, and though she'd ducked slightly so as to not be seen, she'd kept staring. She'd been captivated. 'Sure, baby, why not?', the hug and the way their bond seemed so natural, as if being mother to this child was what Delilah had been born to do…it had been inexplicable (if lovely) to her then. But now she knew it was not so strange, that a mother like that would have grown into the grandmother she'd heard about from her grandson's then-fiancée. In hindsight it was not so strange.

"I was blinkered." She stated, with a heavy finality.

"Yes, you were."

There was no inflection whatsoever in Judas's tone, and the finality of that would have stung, the way the estrangement from most of the rest of her family had stung for all these years. Yet somehow she knew that he of all people would understand. He condemned her actions, she had seen the horror in his eyes when she'd repeated the things she'd said to Julien and Clio in her despairing, grief-infused rages. But she knew that when it came right down to it he understood it all, more than anyone else could.

After all, they were the only ones left.

"To trying, once again, to be more than the worst things you've ever done?" Maria asked.

She carefully held her wine glass up, and tilted her head. Judas frowned at her but then very slowly nodded, draining his first glass and picking up the second. He held it to hers, and the glasses clinked softly. There did not seem to be anything else that could be said, so they sat in silence while finishing their wine, Lidia's piano playing wrapping gently around them. Then, Maria made sure that someone knew that they were returning to the reception, and once a young waitress (younger, definitely not one of the other 'core group' member's children much to her guilty relief) came to retrieve them the two of them headed back up the stairs.

"Oh, there you are!"

As they re-joined the hubbub of the celebrations, Marie waved to them from where she was standing with Julien and Felix.

"We were wondering where you were!" Marie continued.

"Sorry, Marinka," she said. "I just went to have a drink with Judas."

She gestured to Judas, and when he gave her an owlish look from behind his glasses she gave him a soft smile before then tentatively watching her grandsons, and Julien in particular. She watched as he looked between her and Judas back again, thoughts whirring behind his eyes.

"What were you talking about?" Julien asked warily.

"This and that." Judas said, just as wary.

"Mostly about me," Maria admitted. "But now, I think I would like to line my stomach a little more, and hear more about your life, Judas."

Judas looked even more startled, but he nodded slowly.

"Join us, then, Granny Maria!" Marie said. "Judas, you can tell me more about what Zin was like in school!"

"Yes, yes, join us!" Felix said.

Maria did not respond immediately, but instead watched Julien, trying to convey just how much she was trying. She still could not understand how the past they'd all had could be embraced so wholeheartedly and passed on this way, but she knew that it was possible. That the picture so deeply buried in her things was not a lie just because she could not believe in the smiles they portrayed. Embracing the past, or pushing it away, what really mattered was the future.

And while she was still alive to experience the future, she would not let things go on as they had before. It would not be too late to be more than the worst things she had done. I'm sorry, she'd said so many times at the beginning of this evening. Now, she would prove it, if given the chance. She held her breath and held Julien's gaze for what felt like the longest moment until eventually, he cracked a tiny smile and nodded.

"Sure."

And so, she and Judas went to them.

While I don't have many regrets where writing Luciform is concerned, the few I do have are about things I could have included. I'd have liked to incorporate more groups, for one thing, but with the groups I did include I do wish I'd been able to write scenes from more of the members' characters' POVs. Maria was one of those, especially as Cain, Eve, Delilah and Abel all got POV scenes in the story. That, and since in the epilogues it's made clear she distances herself from what happened at Kawaakari (as Judas does) it seemed only fair that one of these stories features her as the POV, with Judas a significant part of the story.