Nightswimming

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It was the deepest part of the night, when silvery moonlight and starlight silvered and blued everything and anything they touched. The still waterfall was deeply shadowed, surrounded by deep forests. Its residents of the water at the bottom of the fall were quietly going on about their ways, some asleep, but many in attendance of the incarnation

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From where she stood in the thick of things, right before Hades himself, Styx spared a single silver thread of her essence and spun it out to her mother.

She said only one thing, and did not ask for anything, not even a reply.

"Momma, I'm really scared."

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Nyx's voice as it went out to Styx was gentle and soft - it offered the comfort of a soothing hand when the physical act was impossible.

"I know, my dark girl. I know."

So much was happening - the evacuation of the Underworld had unsettled her own home as much as anyone else's, and Erebos' omnipresence was the only thing that prevented her from having to calm him down.

And Styx had somehow found herself at the center of it.

"What happened, my girl?"

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"My divorce. I pledged to him one favor, in exchange for my divorce. I am bound to him, inextricably, and I must see him through this. I fear he does not have the support he needs for him to be successful. And that means, that ultimately, he will lose. And I will lose with him.

"I'm willing to take the fall for my actions, Mamma. I'm just... so scared."

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Nyx closed her eyes, slipping off of the rock, keeping the link to Styx open. The divorce. Of course she knew of it. And she had suspected - perhaps known - that the price to pay would be steep. But it made it no less difficult to hear that Hades had demanded all from her daughter in return

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Styx drew strength from her mother's words. Stability. Drive.

It was what she needed, and Nyx had known it. Her reply was much more Styxian.

"It shall be as you have said."

And then, softer, and without the fire-and-ice that defined her: "Thank you, Mother... Think of me, a little, in these coming days."

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"Always, my daughter. Always."

With a wordless thought that was almost a soft caress on Styx's cool cheek, Nyx robed herself in night and closed her eyes, taking herself to the one to whom she could always turn for counsel, comfort, and solace.