gonna hold off on responding further after this until a couple more people show up))

At the cottage, Bliss was eagerly setting up decorations. Like just about everything the young mortal did, they were haphazard, a bit strange, and possibly unsafe. A wooden table that obviously belonged inside had been dragged out to the front yard and was piled high with hundreds of fruit snack packets. Next to it on the table was a surprisingly decent-looking chocolate cake, if you ignored the 57 birthday candles stuck into it from every angle. It looked like a very flammable porcupine.

Inside, strings of lights from various holidays and occasions had been set up, fastened to the walls in several different ways-- staples, tape, and several very bent nails hammered into the walls as makeshift hooks, to name a few. Confetti littered the floor, and upon closer inspection, one could see it was made up of various pieces of paper ripped into very small pieces, as if they had been shoved into a blender and then dumped onto the floor. Hopefully they weren't important.

The birthday girl in question was practically bouncing off the wall in excitement, running in and out of the cottage to make sure everything was perfect. She was sporting a brand new leather jacket. Well, brand new to her, at least. It was... well-loved, scuffed up around the sleeves and covered in colorful patches and pins. It fit her well though, a welcome change from the baggy, oversized clothes she had grown accustomed to. She was also wearing a pair of actually brand new boots with a steel plate molded over the toes of each. Built for kicking shins, one might say-- obviously a gift from Orphos.

Speaking of, where was the dealer god? He was nowhere to be seen, but Bliss didn't seem to be particularly concerned about his apparent absence.

Bliss grinned broadly and there was an extra bounce in her step once she realized that at least one person would be showing up. "Oh hello! I'm so happy you're here. I didn't know if those papers still worked, they've been sitting in storage for gods knows how long." she paused for a second. "Well, I guess Orphos knows, so that makes one of you."

She grabbed a couple streamers and tossed them in the deity's direction, picking up a couple balloons that needed to be blown up for herself. "You can help hang these up if you want!"

She shrugged. "Not really. Go crazy with it as long as you don't break anything!" 

A surprisingly responsible response. Bliss began to blow up the balloons in a quite obnoxious way, loudly inhaling before blowing the air into the balloon as if her life depended on it and repeating the whole process until it was full of air. Within a couple minutes, the floor around her was covered in a decent amount of balloons.

Both Echo and Silence decided to gracefully enter the scene. By gracefully, what the Narrator actually means is that a handful of feet away from the cottage, they both fell off a nyooming, levitating broomstick that had transported them to there. The broomstick itself paused midair after it had thrown its passengers off, and then dropped to the ground now that neither of the two witches were controlling it. The handle hit Echo's head, who softly groaned when it did. Silence was thrown onto their back, which had made the air get knocked out of them, while Echo had face planted.

Silence complained loudly, "Maybe we should have, like, made it into something more controllable, like a motorcycle or something."

Echo nodded in agreement. The two of them laid on the ground for a moment before Echo scrambled up to her knees, panicking.

"Are the gifts okay????"

Silence gave a thumbs up, as they were the one holding the gifts in the first place and had luckily not crushed them.

Echo threw her hands up into the air, cheering, "Yay!" Before looking around.

Bliss was ecstatic that more people had made an appearance. As cool as Galaxian was, having only one person didn't really make it much of a party! She rushed out of the house to meet them, balloons in hand.

"Hello! Welcome!" she called cheerfully, waving her fistful of balloons at the pair. It had been such a long time since she had been able to interact with anyone besides Orphos, and the idea of being able to talk to people again (at her birthday party, no less!) was causing her to behave like an excited puppy.

She looked around for a moment before pointing vaguely at the cottage. "Anywhere in there!"

Bliss waved back excitedly. This was a much better turnout than she expected! Things were going smoothly.

In a stunning display of convenient timing, a certain dealer god had appeared, quite literally, out of thin air-- a very un-Orphos entrance. The deity had materialized on top of the snack table that Bliss had dragged out into the yard, causing the god to immediately slip on a stray fruit snack packet and come crashing down onto the grass. He popped up almost immediately, uttering a string of grumbled curses as he stared at the table, bewildered, hand on one of his machetes strapped to his sides. 

It took him another moment that he had some guests. For a second his eyes widened, then narrowed into slits as his expression settled into a stern frown. "I don't know why any of you are here, but you all need to leave. Now." he said plainly, his grip tightening on his machete.

Bliss had taken the god's fruit snack wipeout as a chance to hide herself by scooting behind the others. She was torn between excitement that Orphos had returned and guilt for her birthday shenanigans. "Uh-oh." she whispered.

Galaxian has either not noticed Orphos' presence or is utterly ignoring the other's arrival, both of which are somehow equally unlikely. He's still busy being inside of the other's home without permission, having finished with the streamers and now proceeding with a plethora of other decorations.
...if he's noticed Orphos, then all these decorations make it so that it would definitely be less of a hassle to conduct the party than to clean up all of this instead.

The god’s brow furrowed. Happy birthday? Why— oh.

The young mortal squeezed her way out to the front, her earlier trepidation thrown to the wayside as she stood in front of Orphos, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “You forgot, didn’t you?” she sniffled, her bottom lip quivering; she was trying very hard to keep it together.

The god hurriedly sheathed his machete and approached Bliss, hands spread in a placating gesture. “Aw, kid, I’m sorry, you know I’ve been busy—“

She wordlessly turned away from him and stomped into the cottage, presumably to disappear into her room upstairs.

Orphos didn’t move to go after her, instead opting to awkwardly stand there with a slightly bewildered expression. This whole raising kids thing wasn’t exactly his forte.

He definitely looked a bit worse for wear since he had last been seen. The dark circles around his eyes were much more prominent than usual. His clothing was bedraggled, as if he had been sleeping in the same clothes for a while, or hadn’t been sleeping at all. As he stood, he was swaying slightly on his feet, a somewhat expected behavior due to his alcoholism, if it weren’t for the fact the god was stone cold sober.

He pointedly ignored answering Time’s question, instead giving the other deity a glare. “That’s none of your business.”

Bliss’s response was loud slamming of her door. It wasn’t long before quiet sobs could be heard from her room. So much for a nice birthday.

Silence is now kind of standing awkwardly in the doorway of the cottage, unsure of what to do or say at the moment. They didn't exactly know Bliss very well, or at all really, so they just stood there holding the stuff they were holding before and staring at Orphos with an unamused expression.

Echo had followed behind Galaxian, worried about Bliss. Echo didn't know Bliss, but she naturally had some form of empathy.

Hesitantly, Echo set down some rocks in front of the door, each one having a different shape, color, and texture. They all had googly eyes glued onto them, which as well were all kinds of shapes.

"Uhm... I have some rocks you can pet... or throw... or something...?"
Echo wasn't sure what made other people happy, and all she really had on her were her pet rocks, some sticks, some ribbon, and a few slap bracelets.

"They're by the door, if you wanna grab them...?"

Echo sounds unsure if this was helpful or not.

Bliss flung open her door. The box of tissues Galaxian sent in was tucked under her arm. Seeing that it was just Echo and Galaxian, she sat down heavily in the doorway and halfheartedly picked up a rock, gently shaking it to watch the googly eyes move. She didn't make eye contact with either of the two in front of her.

Behind her, her room was an absolute mess. Various random magical items were scattered around the room on basically any flat surface, including the floor. Most of them looked like something a 12-year-old shouldn't have.

Bliss sat there in silence for a moment. When she spoke, her words came out in a rush-- she hadn't been able to talk to anyone other than Orphos in so long, so she wasn't wasting any time. "He's been too busy messing around with souls to be here," she sniffled, turning the rock over in her hands. "He used to work with them all the time in the cottage, but something's different now, I guess. That's what he keeps telling me, at least. This is the first time I've seen him out of Storage in two weeks. And he didn't remember it's my birthday!"


Orphos's expression turned defensive at the other god's words. "I'm fine, Time. I'd be better if there wasn't a bunch of random people in my house."
Nevertheless, he pulled out a chair from the table covered in fruit snacks and sat down with a heavy sigh.

Galaxian looks sympathetic, or at least he's really trying to look and be that way. He shuffles through a series of incorrect answers--maybe Orphos was really busy, or has memory loss, or doesn't even remember his own birthday most years. 
"Maybe he would've remembered with a cue! He did say he was busy ahead of time, right?" is the best he can come up with. He sounds hopeful. He probably doesn't remember Orphos very well.

As he listens, the deity's expression changes to one that shows that he's found a different, more suitable approach to try. He even looks a little less gray.
"So all that means we have to try going for the opposite now!" he exclaims. "We'll make this year's party so great that he'll have no choice but to remember next year! Also, us guests can try seeing if he needs help so that he doesn't have so much on his mind next time!"
...is that how Orphos' memory works??
"And if he still can't remember by himself, we'll just have to make it so that all the stuff he drinks will taste like rotten durian for a few days in advance, right up until he remembers and acts on it!" he adds.
Ah okay, there we go.