The ride continued silently for quite some time. Neither seemed to know what to say in the face of uncertain company. Scott was Hel’s older brother, but at the same time he barely knew what that meant and was incapable of truly expressing anything like proper brotherly interaction with her. Hell was Scott’s younger sister, but he only seemed to vaguely acknowledge that fact and it irked her to a degree that she would never admit.

“So, how many boyfriends you got?” asked Scott.

The bubble suddenly came to a dead stop. Hel’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared. “What was that?”

“I was curious.” Scott offered her an approximation of a charming smile. In truth, he was more than a little tired due to recent events. If possible, he would rather sleep for a week than have a conversation. This attempt at a conversation was more to keep his mind off the reasons for why he was tired than to actually learn anything about his newly discovered sister.

“I have no need for such a useless thing, and certainly less need for multiple variants of said useless thing.” said Hel imperiously. She looked straight ahead and lifted her nose slightly upward.

Scott nodded to her. The frosty atmosphere and awkward silence continued for quite some time before Hel glanced over to him. She quickly looked away when he looked her in the eyes.

“It’s fine. You can ask me,” said Scott.

Hel snorted delicately and refused to look at him for a moment. Scott happily looked away from her and back toward the prismatic lightshow of the abyss as it whizzed by faster than the speed of light. The potential scientific inaccuracies of that show consumed his thoughts for a moment. Free from the burden of actual interpersonal communication, his mind craved something to keep it busy. This led him to recall a YouTube video where some supposed science guy had mentioned that the entire field of vision would be a single solid glow at the speed of light. It was quite interesting to witness, inaccuracies not-withstanding.

The moment passed. Hel sighed in a manner that seemed to be long-suffering then said, “I suppose I should let you tell me about your love interests since you seem so determined to do so.”

“Hmm?” asked Scott intelligently. He was still pondering the visual splendors of faster than light travel.

“The harlots you dally with,” said Hel. “You may speak of them.”

“They are not harlots,” said Scott coldly. He did not bother to specify that one of them used to ply that trade, as Sonja certain did not ply that trade any longer.

Hel blinked. Her gaze slowly drifted toward him. The goofy demeanor he had expressed earlier was gone entirely. In its place there stood a man with blazing red eyes and an aura so cold it burned. She could not help but stare at him for a moment. Suddenly, the irritating caricature of her brother seemed to melt away and the brooding nature she recognized from long ago reappeared.

The bridge of her nose reddened slightly, and she forced herself to look away from him. “My apologies…”

Once again, an awkward silence fell across the bubble. Hel, however, found herself locked in memory. Noct-El, her older brother, was strange. Though, he was revered as the oldest of the siblings and beloved by the family, he would often go off by himself for long stretches of time. When he was among the children he would smile, laugh, or play with everyone. However, when he went off on his own, he would do nothing but stare off into the end of creation and play his guitar.

Hel thought of one time when she had followed him, annoyed that he wanted to go off by himself. The memory of her older brother silently staring into the darkness while his flesh took on a deathly white appearance and his eyes blazed red had stayed with her throughout the long lonely years of her abyssal vigil. A certain flutter in her chest caused her to close her eyes. She could not risk looking at the weird little thing that her brother had become at the moment. His current demeanor would remind her too much of what she had witnessed once before. It was too similar to the truth that perhaps only she had seen.

There was a Noct-El who perhaps she alone knew, or so she had told herself through the years. Cold. Fierce. Indomitable. The howling chaos outside the garden always drew back when he began to play his song. It had bought them a great deal of time she would later come to learn. Yet, even the rapport that he had with chaos was not enough in the end.

Eventually, the icy aura that surrounded Scott began to thaw. His tone still cold he said, “Do you want to hear about them?”

Hel opened her eyes but could not look at him. All she did was lightly incline her head.

“I’ll begin from the beginning,” said Scott. “You know about Liz and what happened to her. There was another young girl, or so I thought her to be, who hung around us when we were young.”

“A childhood friend story is it?” asked Hel.

“Yes, thought I think she may have broken my heart,” said Scott.

Hel started to make a snarky retort, but she noticed a certain sadness in his red eyes. Instead of teasing him, she decided to simply let him continue.

“You know of the trouble brought to the world I live in?” asked Scott. “I believe her to be part of it.”

“The trouble, eh?” asked Hel. “You suspect she is one of the younger children?”

“The ones who call themselves gods…” agreed Scott, some of the frost in his voice lessening. “She was a good friend to us as children, but I can’t stop thinking about how she may be directly responsible for how the world came to be the way It was and even…”

“You blame her for what happened to your sister?” asked Hel.

“I’m not certain of anything anymore. So much has changed, and my mind has been toyed with so often,” said Scott. He took a deep breath then released it. “Still, as sweet and doting as she is, I cannot get it out of my head. Had none of them ever come to my world, my sister would not have suffered the way she did, and my family would not be destroyed.”

“Perhaps it is not as bad as you think?” asked Hel.

Scott closed his eyes then slowly shook his head. “I keep trying to tell myself that I’m wrong, but it’s far too obvious. She has lied to me from the beginning. I suspect she had no ill intentions, but…”

“Have you tried discussing it with her?” asked Hel in a soft voice.

“No,” said Scott. “I can’t.”

Hel closed her eyes and sighed gently. “The younger children are… incomplete.”

“I know. They can’t really help themselves,” said Scott. “My memories come and go like the wind, but I can get a sense that they aren’t entirely … right?”

“That’s certainly one way to put it,” agreed Hel. The youngest children took on many forms. Ultimately, they had a mentality that caused them to have difficulty understanding certain aspects of existence.