A/N: Just a warning so no one is shocked by this chapter... these aren't all in chronological order. (Although it might have seemed that way since 2-5 went in a straight progression, we're skipping around in time a bit now.) Also warning that Cygnus is not nearly as horrible a person in this fic as he is anywhere else I've written him so try not to be shocked by that, either.
~ Wizard Sweets ~
(Acidic)
Orion's wife is a blonde, air-headed, overly-excitable little thing.
"Oh, you're the one whose husband just died," she says, upon being introduced to Walburga for the first time.
Walburga struggles to keep a straight face while Orion visibly cringes at his wife's tactlessness. His wife is everything that Walburga is not, and seeing the woman he has always loved next to the one he never wanted is more painful for him than he would have imagined. He aches to reach out to his cousin and draw her into his arms, embrace her as he used to when they were children, call her by the nickname she hates just to hear her scold him over it, and perhaps coax a smile out of her... but, of course, he can't do any of those things.
Instead, he excuses himself from the current conversation at a convenient invitation to go and play wizard's chess with Cygnus.
Orion is forced to pay attention to his wife again some time later, after one of Cygnus' daughters tricks her into trying an Acid Pop.
While Orion makes a half-hearted attempt to comfort his now-hysterical wife, Druella starts to scold the child but is overruled by Cygnus - who tells her to leave the kid alone because it was funny and that she should lighten up. Druella storms out of the room with one child in her arms, leaving the other with Cygnus.
"Who's Daddy's little princess?" Cygnus murmurs affectionately, nuzzling his daughter's cheek.
"Me?" the child puts forth uncertainly.
"Yes, you," Cygnus says, laughing as he cuddles his offspring. "Where did you get the Acid Pop, anyway?"
The little girl hides her face against her father's shoulder and whispers, "It's a secret."
~6/9~