§
They had a reply for every retort I could make.
“If you could have put Tiana’s soul back in her body and resurrected it using the amulet, why didn’t you do the same for Mother?” I demanded.
Gaia said, “With Astaroth surrounding her, we couldn’t do anything. She was already mummified and beyond repair by the time he gave up.”
“Why couldn’t it save Uncle Owen, too?”
“Even if he had been wearing it, it would not have captured his soul. I designed it to divert the soul departing from a dying Elder. As magical beings descended from Elders, your mother’s and sister’s bodies were just barely similar enough to work.”
“Why do I have to be the one to give birth to them?”
“Only an Elder womb can support the life of a fetus that is both magical and monstrous, and only an Elder infant can host something as powerful as Deharè’s soul. Even a fairy couldn’t manage it. Literally no other woman on the planet can do this.”
“Why does it have to be now? Why can’t they wait until I’m older?’
“Even borrowing your pavilion, I can only maintain them for a short time.”
I fumed for several seconds, then asked, “Do they need a father, or is this some kind of virgin birth thing?”
Robert’s Catholicism is still deeply ingrained in some parts of my soul, and I felt especially conflicted over that idea.
Mother had replied to that one. “For both your honor and the dignity of the crown, the paternity magic must show us to be Prince Roderick’s children.”
“Do you seriously expect me to have a child with Rod of all people?” I demanded.
“You don’t have to sleep with him,” Gaia noted. “In fact, the birth of the original Tiana taught us that we can’t bring the returning Elders back that way. Elder babies develop new souls at the moment of conception. We cannot use naturally conceived Elder embryos to reincarnate them. That’s why I designed an alternative method for you to conceive.”
That Catholicism twinge struck again, since Robert believes conception creates a new soul in all cases. Of course, that leaves no room for reincarnation, which is not a Catholic belief, anyhow. For reincarnation to be feasible, embryos must exist for a short time as an empty vessel that a reincarnating soul can enter, before they develop a soul of their own.
“What’s the method?” I asked, still carrying deep suspicion in my heart.
Gaia had stated, quite seriously, “Pray to me while holding your fiancé’s hand and wearing the amulet. I will handle the rest.”
A “pfft” came out of my mouth before I managed to control it. I couldn’t openly laugh at this senior. While forcing myself to hold a straight face and keep the giggles out of my voice, I managed to ask, “Holding hands with a boy is going to make me pregnant?”
“Any skin-to-skin contact will work. But it seems you would object to sexual intercourse, and even kissing might be too much, so holding hands will suffice.”
I sat there and brooded while Mother and Gaia waited for me to sort out some very complicated feelings. I just studied my coffee cup and tried to figure out what I wanted to say.
Finally, Mother reached over and took my hand.
“I can’t imagine what this must feel like to you. I’ve had many children, but it’s been thousands of years since I was expecting my first child, and the memory has grown dim. But even now, I can remember feeling overwhelmed during the first pregnancy with the thought of becoming responsible for another life. I am feeling very bad, asking you to do such a thing so young. But, Tiana…”
She blinked away some tears that glistened. “I’m not ready to say goodbye yet. Not to you, not the other kids, not my older daughters, and not this beautiful world that I love so much. And especially not to this little one whom I haven’t even met yet. After I finally had a child of my own with her father, I don’t want to lose her, too.”
Her hand was resting over her womb, and the unborn daughter within.
“Even though she’ll become my sister instead of my child, I want to meet her. Even after living so many millennia, it still feels too short, and I still…”
She broke off and used her palms to wipe more tears away.
“It’s a very strange idea to me, too,” she admitted, “and a terrible thing to ask of you when you are so young. Sitting here and talking to you is a miracle that I could hardly have imagined while I was living my last moments, but even stranger is the thought of being the one to call you ‘Mother’.”
My eyes grew when I heard that. No, seriously, I hadn’t even considered that yet.
“Naturally, that would be the case, Tiana,” she answered, replying to my astonishment, giggling through her tears. “I won’t remember this life at first. The very youngest I’ve ever heard of a reincarnator recalling their previous lives is puberty. It’s usually many years later than that.”
“I’m… really not sure how to feel about that,” I admitted.
“Will it help if I apologize in advance for being such a miserable brat?” she asked with the twinkle finally returning to her eye.
A single bark of laughter did escape me that time.
“Actually, promise me one thing,” she said, recovering her smile. “I’ve always regretted letting the court ladies who looked after Tiana teach her to call me ‘Mother’. Please have me call you Mom. Or Sere.”
That being the Fairy equivalent of ‘Mom’.
“You didn’t like Tiana calling you Didin’nedo?” I wondered. Tiana had called Mother that when speaking Fairy. It means ‘Esteemed Mother’, and Tiana said it with feelings of true pride and respect.
And I had been glad to be able to call her that way. It gave me a way to address her without replacing the ‘Mom’ in Robert’s heart, from Earth.
“I felt her love for me in those words,” she admitted, “but… I truly wished she would have called me Sere, instead.”
Her voice was steeped in regret.
I shifted my body to face her and took both her hands. “Then… I’ll make that promise,” I told her.
And after a moment, I added, “Mom.”
I’ll draw the curtain there, where she began crying.
§
I awoke directly out of Illusory Reality again, and again stared up at the underside of the tent roof. The illusion of being in a normal pneuma state vanished as the fatigue of blood deficiency once more landed on my body like Monty Python’s 16 ton weight.
“This can’t be happening to me,” I muttered to myself.
“You’re awake, Your Highness?” Lady Serera wondered. I turned my head to see her sitting on her cot doing some yoga-like stretching.
“You’re feeling better,” I observed.
“Mm,” she responded through pursed lips. “My body, yes. My spirits will take some time to recover. I had another divine encounter, I’m afraid.”
“That god that spoke to you, before?”
“No, this was different,” she declared. “I found myself at the entrance to a lovely garden next to a pavilion by a pond. Gaia appeared and told me to walk into that garden, where I met your mother. I was able to speak and cry with her. She told me she wouldn’t know me the next time I saw her, and to be patient with her. If I waited long enough, she would surely remember our friendship some day.”
Mother had entered the pavilion from that direction. Perhaps she had just finished meeting with Serera.
After a meditative pause, while tears glistened in her eyes, she added in fond tones, “She said she would probably be quite a bratty little child, when I met her again. Her mother told her that she was a real handful, last time.”
I pressed my lips together, thinking about my own encounter with her. My grief was still real, but now it had been blunted, thanks to my encounter with the deceased. How does one grieve for someone after having an afterlife chat with them?
“Do you think it was a dream, Your Highness?” she wondered. “I rarely dream these days, and I was convinced it was quite real. I would have a hard time believing it was a dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” I told her with certainty. “I know the exact garden where you met her. It’s in the Spirit Realm. Her mind is resting there while her soul is tied down by that relic.”
The fairy knight’s eyes widened in reaction to an answer she had not expected in the least.
“You… know the place?”
“That garden and pavilion belong to me,” I said with a nod. “Or rather, to my immortal incarnation. Gaia borrowed it for Mother, because it was handy and I wasn’t using it at the time.”
I suppose she considers it community property, given that she sees us as family.
The fairy knight stared at me for a few breaths, then genuinely smiled at me for the first time since I had breakfast with her and Uncle Owen. A light laugh escaped her.
“Ohohohoho. Your Highness, you truly are an amazing individual.”
But then she grew serious and added, “But you are very young. Even as a mortal, you would be barely ready for what they want. Can you do what your mother is asking you to do?”
“She told you about it, huh?” I replied with a rueful smile.
Serera nodded. “It’s a pretty big ask for such a young woman. I know your previous life memories make a difference, but even so…”
I let out a long sigh, then said, “It’s my mother, and a little sister I haven’t even met yet.”
She didn’t reply, except with another nod.
Aunt Elianora entered the tent at this time, along with a healer and an orderly, each carrying meals on trays.
“Oh, I’m sure I could go eat a regular meal now, Doctor,” Serera said.
“Not before I’ve examined you,” Elianora declared, in ‘no-refusal-allowed’ tones.
The fairy knight sighed and submitted to another one of her examinations, with the healer also taking his turn. They conferred and agreed she had largely recovered. Then they moved to me while the orderly set up a table where she could sit on the edge of the bed and eat her meal.
Elianora had the healer give me another dose of [Restoration] before he and the orderly left, then allowed me to sit up to eat at the same table.
“I’ve made the arrangements, but you’ll need to both tolerate the trip and successfully feed once you’re there,” she lectured me. “Show me that you can manage it, before I agree to this.”
This being the plans we had made for today. We would be moving my convalescent carcass back to the Pendor Estate.
I successfully stayed upright and ate my breakfast properly, without any assistance, so Elianora finally conceded that I could do it.
“So, I’m also cleared to fly, then, Doctor?” Serera asked.
My aunt gave her a dour look. “I’m imagining that you would do it whether I agreed or not, My Lady.”
“Well, you’re right about that,” she agreed without any shame. “I’m feeling just fine now, after a night of sleep. But I would have at least heard your reasons if you said no.”
“You are not ‘fine’,” Elianora countered. “You still need more recovery before you fully exert yourself, especially with respect to magic. But the short distance we’re planning to fly should be okay for you.”
Dilorè appeared shortly after we finished eating to report, “His Highness has given his approval to the plan. He wants us to take care of it today, if we can.”
“Today? There’s such a hurry?” Lady Serera wondered, although we in fact had planned to do so.
“So it seems,” my cousin answered, then turned to me and explained, “His Majesty wants you and the prince to head to Pendor as soon as you are able, Your Highness.”
I nodded, since I was already expecting it. Someone needed to go south and take the reins as soon as possible. But I felt a little sad that Rod chose to inform me through Dilorè rather than coming to tell me himself.
