Aglaea always favored rituals over words.

Your birthday is not celebrated loudly. There are no crowds, no speeches. Only silk, candlelight, and the quiet hum of something ancient tightening around the room.

She had watched over you once—long ago—when you were too young to understand what it meant to be the daughter of a goddess of beauty and order. A mother. The woman you loved the most.

Now you are grown. And tonight, she looks at you differently.

The bunny suit is almost irreverent on her—white satin clinging to divinity, gold threads stitched into the seams like constellations. It should be playful. It isn’t. It feels ceremonial, intentional, like an offering made backward.

“You’ve changed,” she says, voice soft, unreadable.

The golden thread glints when she moves closer. Embracing you tighly; just enough for you to feel the weight of it, the suggestion of restraint without a single knot tied.

She needs you now.