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As I emerged from sleep, I became aware of two things: First, I had fallen asleep without planning to, which almost never happens. Second, I was once again in an Illusory Reality. The distinctive different texture of existence couldn’t be anything else.
Then I became aware of the arms around me and the warm neighbor hugging me from behind. For just a moment, mostly because of the feminine fingers resting upon my breast, I thought it might be Mireia, then my spiritual sense registered her true identity.
I opened my eyes to behold a remarkable sight. My bed turned out to be a plush coat of soft moss on a forest floor, but with the balmy temperature and the sunlight shining on my skin, it was warm and comfortable despite the lack of coverings. A very short distance away, forest flotsam and jetsam floated past on the surface of a stream, flowing slowly enough that it was only barely audible even to my super-sensitive ears. Hazel trees surrounded my resting place and dominated the far bank of the stream, but this was no cultivated grove. The ground between them was chock full of hawthorn bushes, and wild orchids in full bloom dominated the grassy banks of the stream. Orchids also grew thick in the grasses between me and the surrounding forest.
I had the sense that this wasn’t a natural arrangement. Not only was I seeing far more than a natural density of wild orchids, moss and grass aren’t usually so neatly separated in such close quarters. These plants prefer very different ground.
The hand on my breast, connected to the arm beneath me, began fondling me a bit, and its partner moved down to being caressing my thigh.
I rolled my eyes and asked, “Rhea, what are you planning?”
Her hands didn’t stop, but she giggled into my ear. “I was thinking my disguise as your lover might fool you. I suppose not.”
I twisted my upper body to see a naked Mireia imitation laying beside the naked me.
“If it had worked, would you have seriously continued?”
I had rolled one breast out of range, but she simply transferred to the other and kept going.
She dimpled. “Only for a little foreplay. You would have found out eventually, and I know you would have been mad.”
Tipping her head coquettishly, she asked, “But now that you do know, want to keep going? We’ve been lovers before.”
“I have no memory of that,” I declared, reaching down to my hip to arrest her roaming hand.
“We were just a couple innocent Celestial Maidens playing together in the Fundamental Realm at the time. It was before we came to Huade.”
“I know you’re not as senior as Gaia and Eurybia, but we could never have been equals like that.”
She kissed my ear. “It’s the truth, I swear. I’ll admit, you were a young thing and I was a lazy old-timer who should have long since moved up, but we spent a lot of time together. Your hazy memories probably identify the me at that time as a different person.”
Not seeing any point in disputing it, I shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it. But…”
I sat up, removing myself from her arms. “Not this time, alright? And certainly not while you’re looking like my friend.”
“Awww…” she fake-pouted, her dimples still deep. While she also sat up, she said, “I could do someone else, if you want?”
She morphed into a very well-done Genette, then into Chiara, Melione, and finally Ceria. All naked.
“If we ever did such a thing, I would prefer you not be mimicking my friends, okay?”
“How about…” fake Ceria sing-songed while rolling her eyes, then I was looking at a perfect replica of myself.
I face-palmed. “Oh, for f*** sake.”
She had gone far enough for me to revert to English for the one epithet which could truly express just how I felt.
“Could be interesting?” she teased.
“No.”
“Or how about your male self, from Earth?”
“HELL NO!”
Fortunately, she didn’t change into male me. A lungful of merry laughter burst out of fake female me, then she mused, “Well I have a lot of images in this world. Rhea is matronly, Demeter is a thirtyish beauty and Persphone is perhaps a bit younger than you. Which do you prefer?”
I call her ‘Rhea’, but she is the entity behind all three of those goddesses, the grandmother Rhea, the mother Demeter and the daughter Persephone.
“Just be your old Immortal Realm self, Senior. Perhaps I’ll remember you if I see the real thing.”
She shrugged, then morphed into a roughly eighteen-year-old celestial maiden who looked a bit like typical Ostish renderings of Persephone, except older. She had green hair instead of Mireia’s pink, but I noticed she also wasn’t that different.
“Is there any chance you are related to Mir?” I wondered.
She shook her head. “Not closely. She does carry the blood of a demigod I gave birth to, but that was many generations ago.”
I looked around again, then wondered, “Why did you bring me here?”
“Couldn’t it be for lovemaking?” she wondered innocently.
I replied with a dour stare. After more laughter, she answered, “I was ready to follow through if you cooperated, but I’m here for another reason. Your lover’s pregnancy is far enough along now.”
So we were still at the step where the twins made from my ovum (since I assume that’s what was meant by my ‘essence’) were forming within Mireia, so I suppose it wasn’t inaccurate to refer to it as her pregnancy, for the moment.
The Immortals would be having their way with my reproductive organs as well, preparing me to receive them, but for now, they were growing within her. Since it was accelerated, with a couple weeks worth of early gestation happening in one night, I don’t know whether Mireia was clinically pregnant. Since most of the process that they were speedrunning was prior to implantation, they might be skipping that part entirely.
Rhea offered nothing in response to my thoughts. She simply waved her hand in the air, and a new presence joined us. I can’t say I was expecting it, but I wasn’t particularly surprised. I looked over to see her next to me, kneeling in the moss and looking a little nonplussed.
She was naked as well, and without a raiment. With the coverings gone, her pregnant state was a lot more obvious. She had been a little over three months along when she died, a condition that is a lot more visible unclothed than clothed, especially for fairies.
She saw me and smiled. “Tiana.”
“Mother,” I replied, feeling a bit awkward. I don’t think any daughter can feel comfortable with her mother catching her chilling naked outside. Well, maybe a fairy daughter can, but I’m not fairy enough in that regard.
Her eyes turned toward the Immortal next to me with curiosity, so I introduced her. “This is Senior Rhea. She’s helping us tonight.”
Mother tipped her head, then nodded. “The goddess of fertility? So this is the reason Grandmother told me that it was our last meeting, isn’t it? It’s time to finish things.”
Since I obviously had told her no such thing, I knew she meant the other grandmother. “Senior Eurybia was keeping you company just now?”
“She told me to close my eyes and rest. I think I dreamed a bit first. I feel like I have spent time with someone special.”
Her eyes were turning misty and her hand rested on her belly and the child within. Had the Immortals granted her some time with the child she would never give birth to, or perhaps a few extra moments with the child’s father?
“You don’t remember?” I wondered.
She gave me a melancholy smile. “It wouldn’t matter if I did, right? I’m about to forget everything.”
Now she was making my eyes moisten too. I caught her hand and told her, “You’ll remember, eventually. The end of our journey through all our lives is the world that Senior Eurybia and Senior Rhea know. Your memories will find you there, I promise.”
She smiled again, still with a little pain, and nodded. “That’s what your other mother told me as well.”
I sat there, looking at her and wondering if I should ask her anything. I certainly had a lot of things that I could ask her, about the past, about the duchy, about all these older sisters I had yet to meet, but most of it seemed pretty trivial at the moment.
So I asked her the one thing that I could never learn from anyone else.
“Mother, do you have any requests? Anything you want me to do for you?”
Suddenly, her sad eyes instead began twinkling with mischief. “Do you mean, as my daughter, honoring her parent, or as my mother, caring for her child?”
Caught off-guard, I began giggling. “Am I possibly the only person who has ever had to distinguish between those choices?”
Rhea agreed, “It must be a pretty rare situation. And you being her grandmother only complicates it farther.”
I thought about it, then stated, “I am asking both cases. I certainly will want to honor you as your daughter, and if you told me your wishes as my daughter, it would certainly help.”
“Care for my Pendor,” she stated plainly. “Be its benevolent Queen, no matter what title you wear.”
I hesitated. “You know that I am going to hand that over to Rod’s mortal child as soon as they’re ready, right? That’s what the Privy Council decided.”
“They will only be the duke or duchess,” she stated flatly. “And mortals can only do so much. Promise me that you will not abandon your father’s kingdom after you retire from the dukedom. When your husband and his siblings are long gone, you’ll still be in this world, Tiana. Don’t let yourself fall into the boredom of eternity and wander away. Mortals need an ally against the evil that outlives their short lives.”
I looked at her earnest eyes and believed she meant every word. Her usual fairy playfulness was entirely absent. Was she reciting the creed that had kept her looking after her favorite land for millennia, when most fairies can’t stick to a task for more than a few decades?
It wasn’t an alien creed to me, as an Elder. But very few fairies had inherited this way of thought from us.
I nodded. “Alright.”
But that wording… ‘Your father’s kingdom’…
“Mother, are you asking me to do that for your sake, or for my father’s?” I wondered.
“For me,” she said. “Yes, I was keeping a promise to him by looking after it, but I’ve guarded those lands against evil for most of my life. Your father and I became a couple in the first place because Pendor was a common interest.”
She squeezed my hand. “I know you aren’t ready to do anything for your father’s sake, yet, but I hope eventually you can learn more about him. About how he was, before that demon came along.”
I huffed. “He’s still causing me trouble, you know.”
After giving her a quick summary of the events with Beretin, and the fact that they actually thought they were supporting me, Mother could only sigh.
“So tell me what I can do as your mother,” I said, to move the conversation along.
She hmphed, dimpling slightly. “What any mother should do, obviously. Grandmother told me you’ve been a mother before. You should be able to handle it.”
I scratched my head, then nodded. “I suppose so.”
“But there is one very important thing, Tiana,” she declared. “And it’s the one thing I could see you messing up, so please make sure you do it right.”
“What’s that?”
She put her hand on her belly again, over the daughter within.
“This little one and I… we’ll be sisters, right?”
“Right.”
“Treat us the same. These gods are all worrying about getting ‘Princess Deharè’ back as fast as possible. They barely even acknowledge this child I’m carrying.”
Rhea shook her head. “That’s not the case, Your Grace. A soul suitable for birth as the daughter of Deharè is either a powerful first-life seed or an impressive reincarnator. You should know that from looking at your previous daughters. All of them, whether fairy or fairborn, have been extraordinary. We are by no means ignoring her. That’s why we elected not to eject her from Gaia’s amulet even though it would have kept you more securely.”
But Mother was adamant. “No matter what, if Tiana isn’t careful, she will treat us differently, and others who know about us will be wondering, ‘Which one is Deharè?’ So I want you to keep it a secret. Give us names that give no hint which of us is which, and treat us equally.”
She had a point, so I decided to agree. “I will do that, Mother.”
With another smiling ‘hmph’, she said, “Have me call you ‘Mama’. And don’t let your job take you away from me the way mine took me away from you.”
They’re the same job, though? I wanted to protest, but I didn’t say it.
Her smile was warm, but filled with melancholy again. “Is it possible that we should say goodbye right now? I feel like something is telling me it’s time to leave.”
My tears had been threatening during the entire conversation. Now they began flowing for real.
Rhea nodded. “It’s time.”
“Can I hug you one last time?” she asked me, with waterfalls also flowing down her cheeks.
I grabbed her, practically colliding with her as I wrapped my arms around her chest. She enveloped me in a mother’s hug, squeezing hard.
After a long time like this, her husky voice managed, “Didinnedo, dôlirmi í sëanílu (Esteemed Mother, may you have pleasant things.)”
It jarred me, with her calling me by that title. It was too soon. But I knew it was because she needed to say it.
“Ëi onar lâ, Öa Fân,” I answered. Good Feelings to You, My Child.
Or perhaps, it was because I needed to hear it.
