A Jaded Life

Chapter 1323

When I returned to Maggie’s community, and more specifically, to my daughters, both were immediately able to tell that something weird had happened. Luckily, they didn’t have to consider privacy, as there was nobody around when I stepped out of the shadows near the pair, as I wasn’t sure they would have been able to hold back.

“What happened to you?” Lia asked after a few moments. She had spent those moments studying me, as if trying to ascertain I was still who I appeared to be. Similarly, Luna was already weaving together a diverse selection of spells that would allow her to identify me. She was quite thorough, checking everything from my detailed physical form down to the affinities and condition of my soul. If it weren’t my daughters doing the checking, I would have resisted quite fiercely, but they were family. Though I wasn’t sure why they were this disturbed, I didn’t think that I looked any different than before, though I hadn’t actually checked with a mirror.

“I learned a few things about myself,” I admitted, uncertain how to explain the rest. The identity of the Mother was quite complicated, especially given the family dynamics among the three of us. I was their mother, the female sapient who tended to their needs and guided them on the path to adulthood, but I had also been the Mother, the divine entity central to Luna’s mystical identity. Could Luna continue being the Maiden if I were her mother without being the Mother? In a way, it felt like a silly question, but, at the same time, would this change something between us? Would my importance diminish, and the Mother take over more of Luna’s affection as she became more and more distinct from me? Or would the link between the Mother and me always remain strong enough to keep that bond going?

“That doesn’t explain why you feel so different,” Luna said, her face twisted into a concerned frown. “There’s something off about you, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Tell me, sweetheart, how do you experience the split between the Maiden, your divine persona, and your mortal self? Are you conscious of it, or are you simply ignoring the Maiden?” I asked in response, essentially ignoring her question.

“The Maiden is just part of me,” she continued to frown, but obviously tried her best to explain. “Most of that happens when I’m asleep and dreaming, but on some level, I always feel when people pray to me, even if it’s on a low level. Kinda like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, something you can easily ignore, but you still register that something happened. Though responding to prayers is a little different. I think most of that comes from the Grandmother at the moment.”

“Why are you asking?” she prodded, just after shaking off a bit of confusion caused by my question.

“What you describe is similar to the way I experienced the Mother about half a year ago, maybe nine months, I didn’t quite keep track of things. I dreamed about the crystal forest around Neyto, walking through it and hearing voices in the mist. I think those were prayers to the Mother I experienced, and, occasionally, I answered them, doing my best to infuse my magic into the forest and the mist,” I explained, a frown on my face.

“But then, at some point, I think when I had to focus on the Giants as we were guiding them north and west, I stopped dreaming, at least I stopped having those dreams. Granted, I slept very little at the time; my focus was on keeping the Giants moving in the right direction, stopping them from fighting and all that. I just didn’t have time, so I slept as little as possible,” I shrugged once more, noticing a slightly odd expression on Luna’s face.

“But I’m pretty sure you kept providing spells. I mean, I never felt as if a prayer went unheard, or that one of the people who primarily pray to you had their powers dry up. Even Jess received an idol in your image earlier and had a small prayer answered,” Luna obviously tried to make sense of my words, only to get confused.

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“Which would imply that I’m no longer the Mother, doesn’t it?” I asked, my voice now lacking its usual strength and conviction.

“But you are the Mother; nothing could change that. It’s who you are!” Now, Luna was getting agitated, the frown on her face growing even more pronounced while Lia looked on, slightly confused and maybe a little disturbed.

“It’s a part of her, but it’s not her entire being. She’s always been more than ‘just’ the Mother; there was always a colder part to her, and one that is a lot more ambitious than we can imagine, isn’t there?” Lia asked, showing that my dear daughter could be quite perceptive.

“You are fairly close, yes,” I nodded, “Though I’m not sure if that’s the best way to explain.” For a moment, I paused, trying to find the right words to describe what I had experienced while meditating.

“Think of it like this,” I began, “Think of a body of water, maybe call it a puddle. Now, one part of that puddle gets more and more water poured into it, causing dirt to be swept up. The dirt starts to form a dam, creating two different puddles, but they are still the same, right?” I tried to explain, only for both my daughters to look at me with confused expressions.

“Okay, maybe not quite the right explanation,” I sighed, and tried again, searching for the right words, only to stumble a few times. However, my stumbles seemed to be enough to give both of my daughters an idea of what I was trying to say.

“You are still my Mom,” Luna promised, interrupting my fourth attempt at finding the right simile to express the growing separation between the Mother and me, while also making sure that it remained obvious we would always be one. Just one being in two places, operating on slightly different, and more divergent, moral and ethical standards. Maybe the greatest difficulty in explaining this was my inability to understand how we could remain the same, even as we separated and diverged further each day.

“Even if you are in two places, you are still the Mother and my Mom. It’s like with those constructs of yours, they might not be your flesh-and-blood body, but they are still made and controlled by you, even if you don’t focus on them right that moment, aren’t they?” Luna tried to find a working image of her own, and I had to admit hers worked better to illustrate things. “There, you use your bound spirit to facilitate things; here, you simply use a different aspect of yourself. Does that make sense?” she asked, causing Lia to nod along.

“I think my biggest worry is that I’m not aware of that at all. I experience the world around me through my senses, allowing me to feel a myriad of things. In a way, my senses define reality for me,” I paused for a moment, parsing my statement to make sure I was saying what I wanted to convey, “I can’t sense that divine part of ‘me’, I barely managed to get an idea of it while meditating, and that was intense and incredibly confusing at the same time,” I sighed, looking my daughters over once again.

“And it still doesn’t change a thing,” Lia insisted, “You are still who you are, you just know more about that now. But you can’t drive yourself insane with worry, or you’ll do the same to us,” she chided me, though there was a small grin on her face as she did.

“Mhm,” Luna now nodded, “I think that’s what freaked us out when you came back. Normally, you are…” she paused for a moment, “You feel intense and driven, as if you have a plan and you will make it happen, no matter what. That drive and intensity were missing when you came back; it made you seem like an entirely different person.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that; it wasn’t as if I could know how other people experienced my presence. It was quite interesting, though there really wasn’t anything I could do about it but accept their explanation and move on.

For a moment, I considered telling Lia about my idea to turn the leash currently held by my conscious portion over to the Mother, but I quickly decided against bringing that up now. This whole thing was private to Lia, not something I would want to discuss with Luna present. And excluding Luna now would also feel wrong, so this particular discussion would have to wait.

For now, I was just happy that my daughters continued to see me as their mother. I wasn’t sure if this would be the last time we spoke about this topic, and actually doubted it, but just knowing that my family was okay took a burden off my heart.