A week before Blu’s seventeenth birthday, while he was braiding Aspen’s hair, he asked her a question that made her weak heart jump.

“Mamá, am I a mistake?”

“No of course not sweetheart!” Blu flinched at the pet name.

“You father loved you so, so much, and you are my everything,” She whispered this into his wavy red hair, so much like her love from long ago.

“You could never be a mistake, my little cloudjumper, you are my entire sky,”

Blu curled up next to Aspen as she whispered nonsense into his ears.

For a long time after that, Blu would remember that night as one of the last times his mother was lucid enough to speak.

“Ok Mamá,”

He whispered back.