Chương 146: Interlude 32 – A Difficult Reunion

=::= Cass's PoV =::=

After a couple gentle knocks at the door I asked, "Hey sis? Can I come in?"

"Sure," Nina replied. Then as I opened her door she asked, "What's up Cass?"

She was sitting at her desk with a book in hand, but she put it aside and looked over at me to see what I wanted. She probably realized something was up since I was still standing in her doorway. Normally I'd have gone straight in and either embarrassed her with a hug or maybe I'd have sat on her bed or something.

"Please don't be scared or upset, ok Nina?" I told her in a soft but serious voice. "There's someone here who needs to speak with you, and you might not want to see her but I promise you're safe. She can't hurt you, and I won't let anything happen to you."

The small demon frowned slightly, and in a wary voice she responded "Ok Cass. Who is it, who's here?"

I moved forward into her bedroom then stepped to the side, and a moment later Socha came in behind me.

Her new body wasn't what I'd originally intended. It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought to create a new body from scratch, and at one point I almost got too anxious and uptight to pull it off. Fortunately that calm came over me before I got too worked up, and after that things sort of fell into place. Instead of manifesting a new body from nothing I used my own body as a sort of template. Even that wasn't easy though, and the end result wasn't quite what I'd had in mind.

The new Socha was my height instead of being a few inches taller. She was slimmer though, her figure was more like Willow's than mine. Her face was her own, she didn't look like me or Nina. Her hair was still snow white, but instead of being frizzy like May's it was more like my messy style. And her eyes were their original bright sapphire blue colour.

Basically she was still Socha, but with a slightly smaller new body.

The other big difference was unlike me, she was not an immortal goddess-demon hybrid. Recreating that turned out to be pretty much impossible. After all, there was a reason Socha went to as much trouble as she did to create my body. What I came up with instead was a sort of human-demon hybrid, with some divine blessing crammed in for good measure.

Her body was mortal, but the demonic influence meant she'd have a much longer lifespan than a typical human. She'd also benefit from some demonic healing and desease resistance and that kind of thing. The demonic heritage would give her some limited access to demonic magic, while my chaos blessing would give her limited access to divine magic. And she still had all her knowledge and experience of magic and spells and stuff, which was pretty extensive. She wasn't a goddess anymore though, since I held her divine power and title.

She was currently dressed in some clothes she'd borrowed from my closet. She actually picked some of the things I got last summer when I was being influenced by the piece of herself she left in the shard, which sort of made sense in a way. She'd picked a pair of skinny jeans and that 'Welcome ❤ Hell' top, along with some comfy old sneakers.

Nina sat motionless as she took all this in. Her eyes were wide, her shoulders tense, her face was almost as white as Socha's hair, and she even seemed to be holding her breath. After a second or two she stammered quietly, "H-how? How are you here? This can't be..."

Socha was staring down at the floor as she moved a few paces closer to my little sister. She hesitated there a moment, then sank to her knees and bowed her head.

"Ninaya I am very sorry for how I mistreated you and abused your trust and friendship," the former goddess apologized quietly. Her voice hadn't changed either, she even had that same vaguely-British accent as before.

She continued, "I have nothing to offer you in compensation for the pain and anguish I've caused you, but if there's anything I can do to make amends you have only to ask."

For the next couple seconds my little sister stared speechless at Socha, who remained on her knees with her head bowed. It was probably close to half a minute before Nina finally looked up at me and asked, "Cass? What did you do? How is she here? Why is she here?"

I grimaced, "Sorry for springing this on you Nina. I wasn't planning on bringing her back, I only wanted to go and meet her? I wanted to get to know her better. Anyways, me and Socha talked and sort of compared notes and stuff I guess? And when I found out what she was really trying to do, and why she wanted to do it, I started to think maybe it wasn't such a bad idea."

"I'm not sure the way she decided to go about things was the best option," I quickly added. "And she definitely made some serious mistakes, especially with how she treated you."

My little sister slowly shook her head, "She tried to kill you Cass. And she made me do some terrible things. I don't trust her anymore."

"I know sis," I replied. I was still grimacing as I continued softly, "Like I said, she made some serious mistakes. She didn't actually mean to kill me, because she didn't know I existed in the first place. She didn't expect her new body to have someone living in it already? It was only supposed to be the piece of herself she left in the shard. And that fragment didn't know how to deal with me, it didn't expect me to exist either so it was just sort of making stuff up as it went along, trying to complete its mission."

Socha was still kneeling and kept her head down but she quietly asked, "If I may speak?"

"Sure," I said as I looked to her.

The former goddess kept her head down and everything as she quietly apologized again, "Whether the outcome was by accident or design, I am still responsible for my actions and the actions of my creations. My hubris has so far cost me a century of exile, along with my power, my title, and my immortality. Ninaya, I will not ask for your forgiveness nor do I expect it. I'm sorry for all the ways I hurt you in the past, and I'm glad that you've found happiness and true friendship with Cassandra and her family. And should you desire to seek revenge for the pain I've caused you, I will accept whatever judgement you wish to deliver."

My little sister was quiet for the next few seconds, as she stared down at the kneeling figure before her with a frown on her face. She finally asked, "What do you mean, about losing your immortality?"

"I am no longer a goddess," Socha replied. "My fall is complete. Cassandra was able to circumvent my exile and bring me here today by creating for me this mortal body. My power and title remain with her."

"Does that mean you're human now?" Nina asked. She sounded surprised, but she also sounded like she was trying not to let it show.

I shook my head, "Not entirely. I sort of tried to make a copy of my body for her, so she'd be like me? But it turned out that was impossible. The best I could do for now was a sort of human demon hybrid, with a bit of divine blessing. She's supernatural, but she's not immortal."

My little sister frowned as she thought about that for a bit. Then she looked at me and asked, "Have you told our parents about her yet?"

"No," I shook my head again. "We needed to see you first, Socha needed to apologize. And I want to make this clear sis? Whether or not she stays is up to you. If you can't cope with knowing she's back, I'll send her away again. Back into exile."

Nina took a deep breath then sighed. She finally stated, "Socha please get up off the floor, you don't have to kneel or bow or any of that stuff. And I'm not going to hurt you or punish you, I don't want revenge."

Without waiting for a response my sister looked back at me and asked, "What are we going to tell people about her? And where is she going to live? She's going to need someplace to stay. And she'll need help getting used to the way the world's changed over the last hundred years. She might even have to get a job or something, if she needs to support herself. And that'll mean getting her ID and everything else too."

I grimaced again, "I haven't thought about any of that yet. Maybe we can tell folks she's my cousin from England or something? We can figure the rest of it out later though, right? It felt like the most important thing was she needed to apologize to you first, before we started thinking about anything else."

By that point Socha had got to her feet. She moved to stand a little off to the side, but kept her head bowed down while she nervously fidgeted her hands together.

Nina was quiet again for a few moments, while she looked over at her former friend once more and asked "Socha please look at me?"

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The former goddess looked up and met my sister's gaze. The two regarded each other quietly for a couple seconds, Socha appeared nervous while Nina kept her expression sort of impassive.

Finally the small demon spoke, but unlike her usual shy quiet tones this time she sounded firm and confident.

"I'm not ready to forgive you for lying to me, or for the things you made me do," Nina stated. "But despite how you sometimes treated me, you were still the closest thing I had to a friend for a long time. And I missed you when you were gone. I'm glad you're back Socha, but I'm also glad that Cassandra has your power now instead of you."

She paused briefly before adding in a harder tone, "My sister is very loving and trusting and kind, and if you do anything to harm her, or our parents, or any of our friends, I will send you back to the heavens myself."

The former goddess bowed her head once more as she responded quietly, "I understand, and I swear I will not harm either of you, your adoptive family, or your friends. Thank you Ninaya. And I missed you as well. I hope we can someday be friends again."

My sister stepped forward and pulled a surprised Socha into a hug. "It's good to see you again. Please call me Nina though, ok? That's how everyone knows me now. I'm Nina Underwood, me and Cass are adoptive sisters, our parents are Tanya and Julie Underwood."

"Thank you Nina," Socha mumbled quietly. She slowly returned the hug as she added, "It's good to be back. And it's wonderful to see you again as well."

I couldn't help smiling as it seemed like the reunion had got past the hardest part without too much trouble. We still had to talk to our parents about Socha, but I figured that would probably be easier now that we had Nina on our side.

After the hugs were over the three of us sat down together on my little sister's bed. She was in the middle, with me on one side and Socha on the other. The small demon looked awkward again as she asked, "So how are we going to break the news to our parents? What do we tell them? And where can Socha stay?"

I grimaced slightly, "I'll talk to our parents. They're probably not going to be too happy at first, but this is my responsibility so I'll take the blame."

"Anyways I'm kind of related to Socha too, right?" I added a moment later. "Some of me comes from her, just like some of me comes from you sis."

Nina grimaced, "I don't know if they're going to want to adopt her. But even if they did, our house doesn't have another bedroom. There's nowhere for her to stay here."

Socha spoke up before I could respond to that, "Is my mother still around? I'm not in any great hurry to see her just yet, but if needs be I could try and contact her. I'll just have to endure a few months-long lectures about all my past mistakes, then listen to her describe in detail every way I've disappointed her since the great fire of London."

"That's assuming she'd even have me back now," she added with a frown. "Mother might instead choose to disown me, once she learns how far I've fallen."

Somehow it didn't surprise me to hear that May Hawthorne would be like that to her own daughter.

I frowned, "Then let's not bother with May. I don't really want to see her again yet either."

"What of Brian?" the fallen goddess asked next.

My little sister made a face when the fae's name came up, and Socha gave her an apologetic look.

"Nina I know you and Brian never got along," the former goddess continued, "But I owe him an apology as well. And perhaps he could help me, if it's not possible or practical for me to remain here with you and Cassandra."

I grimaced and shook my head, "Sorry Socha. We kind of banished him from Earth back in December, after he tried to complete the ritual that was supposed to kill me and restore you."

"Ah," she sighed. "Unfortunate. I'm not familiar with the fae realm, and it wouldn't be safe for me to venture there now regardless."

There was a brief awkward pause there, and I felt my cheeks heating up as I changed the subject back to her accommodations.

"Finding you somewhere to stay won't be a problem," I half-mumbled. "I um, I kind of own a house not far from here? And there's two empty bedrooms in it. The only thing is we'll have to introduce you to the two werewolfs who live in the basement, and make sure they won't mind having you stay with them."

Socha looked a little surprised, "You have your own home, but you choose to live here with your parents and Nina?"

I was still blushing as I nodded, "Yeah. I um, I didn't really buy it for me? I mostly bought it so our werewolf friends wouldn't have to move away."

That put a little smile on the former goddess's face. Not the part about having somewhere she could stay, but the part where I got the place for Melanie and Cerys.

"Raised by fallen angels, adoptive sister to a demon, friends with witches and werewolves, shape-shifters and demi-humans. You really are remarkable Cassandra," Socha commented.

That just made me blush a little brighter. I shrugged and mumbled, "I just want to be friends with people, and I like helping folks out if I can."

"That's my sister," Nina said as she gave me a proud smile.

Socha was still smiling at me too, and I quickly started to feel a little self-conscious with the way the two of them were looking at me like that.

The three of us ended up sitting there in a bit of awkward silence for another half minute or so, when we heard someone clearing her throat from the doorway. We all looked up, and both me and Nina immediately cringed at our mom who was standing just inside the door.

"Cassandra, Nina, who is your new friend?" she asked. Except she was mostly looking at me.

I was still cringing as I responded, "Hi mom. This is my um, cousin? From England?"

"Greetings Mrs. Underwood," the former goddess politely addressed our mom. She bowed her head slightly as she added, "My name is Socha. I owe my freedom to Cassandra, she saved me from permanent exile."

Mom's eyes drifted back to me as she slowly arched one eyebrow then let out a long sigh.