It was a bright and early Monday morning, and the schools were still closed for the Christmas holiday. Aidan and Giulia were feeling particularly rambunctious, darting around the house, asking when their Christmas Seal would come for another visit, and if they could get a puppy. And a rabbit. And another cat. Maybe two puppies. And a rabbit. And a cat. They didn't want to eat their breakfast, they didn't want to stay home all day...

Jada was coming to understand why Szelem had wanted a nanny to deal with her children. Her mother had wanted to be a parent, but with none of the nasty mess that came with it. No diapers, no crying, no late nights and early mornings. She wanted the recitals, the beautiful parties, the mannerly, sweet docility, and not realized her children had been born as an ultimate curse- they all had the Montgomery stubborn willfulness, just like her. Jada didn't want a nanny to take those messes away, she just needed a second set of hands.

Raising Giulia and Aidan... only made her mourn all the more what she'd lost.

Lifting Aidan high, she squished a kiss to his cheek while he made disgruntled noises, Giulia clinging to her leg. "Both of you go wash up," she told them, "I'll take you to my favorite place in the city." the promise was all they needed to send them wiggling away, Castor hot on their heels, meowing loudly at them both. Their laughter rang through the corridors, and from the kitchen she could hear the new chef making herself at home. Home. It had been a long time since Destiny City had felt that way. She moved to the window, staring out over the manicured lawn, the fountains, the trees, the pile of beautiful snow.

Jada had so many gifts, this life. In so many ways, something that the last her... had always wanted. She was free to find a love who could stay with her, who would put her first, who she could put first. She had the luxury of love, and family. Wealth, not slavery. In this security, was the destruction Chaos had brought, to buy her this freedom, really so bad? For what would she have had, before? She never would have had peace. There was only war, and fighting, and duty. She had a child, once her enslavers were unable to continue to poison her, it, but couldn't parent them. She'd given up everything that made her Andromache to be Scylla. Jada would not do the same.

Ah. So that was how Chaos did it. She leaned her head forward, pressing her forehead to the window. It looked seductive, looked tempting, made the other side look sweet, and made you forget the cost. But what was the cost? She had already taken lives. Already looked the other way, for her own benefit. What made her any different than those who had surrendered their autonomy? Was it a sense of morality, a love for her family? No; over the years she had come to find that just as many on the side of Chaos shared in that feeling. It was, it seemed, a different line.

But where was the line? What would the cost be to her? And if she could protect her family, even by leaving them behind. Couldn't she do it?

Aidan and Giulia ran into the room, screaming, and Jada was ripped from her dark introspections. Her siblings- always loud, rowdy, full of light and laughter. They lifted the gloom, and Jada lifted her forehead from the windowpane, where she had been staring sightlessly at the snow. “Mama,” Aidan called, and bounced around in Giulia's shoes, making them light up, “I get to wear the blinky shoes!” his bright blue eyes were glowing with excitement, and she felt her lips curve in a smile. Mama; a name Szelem should have been able to hear her own children call her, not one Jada's siblings should have needed to use for her.

But Szelem never would, and it was going to be Jada's job to protect the children left behind. From their father, from herself, from whatever may come. “Come on,” she told them with a smile, and began to help get them wrapped up into their jackets, “I promised to show you my favorite place, didn't I?”

Continued here