Chapter Text
“Like your new bed, sweetie?” Angel asked three-year-old Bella. “Letto per una bambina grande.”
Bella hugged her new blue pillow and her purple bunny.
“Adoro il letto, Mama! Big girl, now!”
The new bed had a canopy with pretty stars that glowed, a birthday present from Grandpa Lucifer, among other stuff. Sometimes Angel thought the king might be a little overindulgent with Bella, but he wouldn't dare argue with the devil, not when Lucifer was the one keeping Valentino and Alastor at bay.
When Lucifer came into the room to set up the bed, a few hours ago, he'd also fixed Alastor's birthday present to Bella. Alastor had gifted Bella a music box. The music box looked like a regular old music box, just with a deer engraved on the wooden lid, but Bella never liked any presents Alastor gave her, and Angel didn't trust them.
The music box hadn't worked anyway. Bella innocently thought the music box was broken, Angel thought Lucifer's power kept Alastor from working his dark magic on Bella. Lucifer had turned the music box into a musical rubber duck.
Bella already had that other music box anyway, the purple one. The Morningstars sure loved their musical toys.
Husk came into Bella's room to read her The Velveteen Rabbit. She'd always loved the book, and was getting old enough to really understand the message.
“You're real,” Bella told Husk, Angel, and Fat Nuggets (Fat Nuggets having decided to sleep with the birthday girl). “ I love you, and you're real. I love Auntie Cherri and Auntie Molly, and Grandpa and Auntie Charlie and Aunt Vaggi, and Auntie Niffty, and Uncle Pentious, so they're real.”
Husk stopped reading and smiled softly. “...Yeah, kid, you're getting it.”
Bella pondered that as she petted Fat Nuggets.
“ I don't love Papi, Uncle Vox, Aunt Velvette or Uncle Alastor, so does that mean they're not real?”
Angel and Husk both laughed.
“If only,” Husk mumbled into his paw as he tried to muffle his laughter.
“Yeah, I wish,” Angel said.
That birthday was the earliest memory Bella could recall. She thought of that night so many times, most often after she turned twenty and was still in that same room, but now all alone.
The glow on her starry canopy flickered. A sign that Grandpa's power to protect her was waning, now that Bella was almost twenty-one and Grandpa didn't live in the hotel anymore?