Chương 1054: Day One Thousand And Fifty-Two

Dear Diary, I think one of the worst things about chronic depression, and given how shitty chronic depression is in general, is how it can sneak up on you and spoil occasions that ought to be joyous. Ought to be triumphant and blissful. Moments in life that ought to etch themselves into consciousness and memory as perfection imposing itself on life, somehow ruined and made banal, trivial, and meaningless by a twist of fuckin' neurochemistry. Yeah.

I might have forgotten that one potential side effect of 'staying awake for extended periods' is the Black Dog biting me. I think the worst part of that might be how it affects other people. Because I'm finally at a point where I can see that it does. Affect other people. Because when everybody at the party is celebrating, but one of the people everybody counts on to be a life of the party sort falls apart, nobody can keep celebrating any more.

Times like that I kind of miss being what amounted to a recluse back in the day. Back then I might wind up leaving a party or dropping off a Discord call because all of a sudden nothing mattered, and it was shitty for me personally, but I didn't wind up smearing my shit over anybody else. I definitely didn't wind up smearing my shit over my loved ones, because I didn't really have any of those. Fuck, I just realized, I don't know if I did that back when my mom was alive.

Back before puberty, when I was still a little kid. I don't fuckin' know if the brain chemistry malfunction that causes chronic depression flips before puberty, or if it can if it had for me, but I'm utterly uncertain if it did back before she got diagnosed. I'm pretty sure once I found out that I started having episodes, and I'm pretty sure she noticed. Fuck, I can't even, y'know, just be me without my fucked up biochemistry fucking over the folks I love.

Which is all the more galling because I've got entirely new biochemistry here and now, but somehow it's still fucking me over. So yeah, everything at East House is presently about Aoibh.

Siobhan has decanted the Siobean, and she is incredibly adorable, even if she is kinda the epitome of the original description of Snow White, which I've read all the old Tumblr memes where they talk about her looking like a vampire, and totally understood why the queen got freaked out and demanded the huntsman bring her Snow White's heart, and how it would totally explain how she bewitched a bunch of dwarves and forest animals to do her bidding.

Fortunately for my peace of mind, as we sat at the dinner table this evening Alex of all people brought that up. Specifically, when she came up to take her turn for cooing at Aoibh and seeing if there was anything she could do for Siobhan while Siobhan fed the endless stomach that was our newborn, Alex said, "Her hair is like Mom's, and her skin's like yours, but... Why are her lips like that?" I very carefully clamped my lips shut to avoid the V word.

Saffron and Siobhan both seemed a little, I dunno, weirded out, almost like they hadn't really grokked exactly how red our little bundle of joy's lips were, but then Tallulah chimed in.

"She is Fae."

"Wait, what? How did Siobhan and Saffron make a Fairy?" Tallulah shook her head.

"Fae, not Fairy."

"Okay, one, what's the difference, because by the booger look on your face I said something offensive, which I didn't mean, and two, okay, how did Siobhan and Saffron make a Fae?" Tallulah didn't enjoy lecturing nearly as much as Saffron did, or at least not about this subject in particular. Then again, I'm not sure I'd be real thrilled to lecture a bunch of suburban white kids about the difference between 'Spanish', 'Hispanic', and 'Latin' back in the day.

I mean, I might have, but it would mostly be because if I were lecturing, that meant they were listening. Maybe my nethers have always been lubricated by having some kinda power. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. But booger look or not, she enlightened me.

"From the lore of the Fae as well as recent research done by Archmage Aetos-Diaz with my assistance, the Fae are Mortals who migrated Underhill."

"To M-Space," added Saffron. Okay, maybe 'corrected' would have been a better word, because Tallulah's booger look got boogerier, but she nodded anyhow.

"To M-Space. While there, they became inundated with Mana, to the point where creatures which would otherwise be simple beasts became far more than that, and Humans who migrated became various types of Fae. Including, obviously, Sidhe, who from our research were once Humans."

"Okay. Cool. What's a Fairy then?" She shuddered a little.

"While the Fae are those Mortal persons and animals which lived Under... In M-Space long enough to adapt, Fairies are... They are like images imposed on M-Space. Things which occurred there as echoes of things in the Mortal Realm. Only with Fae living in M-Space, those Fairies became," she kept pausing, like she definitely didn't like this conclusion, but it made too much sense for her to disagree with, "stronger. No, no, not stronger, but more real." That got me a horrible thought.

"How did those Humans and other species 'adapt'?" Yeah, she a got real awful look on her face, even while Saffron's eyes lit up with sudden comprehension.

"I do not like thinking of this, but it is possible they interbred with Fairies."

"Oh. Oh, shit. So, like, if you trace any given Fae's heritage back, at some point they wound up getting it on with their imaginary friend?" At that point Tallulah looked like she disagreed, but couldn't explain. Saffron came to her rescue.

"While that is possible, it is far more likely they wound up impregnated by incarnations of their fears rather than their hopes or dreams." It took me a second. When I realized I stepped over and put my arms around Tallulah.

"Fuck, I'm sorry."

"It is not an easy thing to think about." She squared her shoulders.

"Still, it has not happened in my lifetime, nor in the lifetime of any who were born since The Morrigan took the throne of the Sidhe." I sighed.

"Guess even the worst of the Gods may have been protecting people from things worse than them on occasion." She shrugged.

"Mayhap, but that did not give them reason to see how cruel or capricious they could be without another coming along to remove them in turn." I think that might have been what tipped something inside me over the edge, but I didn't feel it quite yet. Instead I said, "So... How does this relate to little Aoibh?" Tallulah shrugged.

"She matches the descriptions of many of those first Fae children. Her skin is lighter than either of her parents, her hair darker, and her lips are red as blood. Those first Fae are often described with coloration that... Simple. Pure. Basic." I nodded.

"Okay. Okay, yeah, I guess if she matches the description. If the shoe fits. But how?" At that point Canta, who'd either stuck around or decided to come back, because I hadn't felt the need to keep eyes on him for his entire visit, definitely kicked any clinging fingers loose from that edge that kept me from falling.

"What you did. When you saved her in the womb, when you tied her Soul so firmly to her Body." I felt it then. I kept it off my face, kept it from the kids, or I thought I did, but I stumbled over to where Siobhan and Saffron both hovered over little Aoibh. I went to my knees and looked her in her eyes when she detached at the sound of my knees hitting the floor.

"I'm sorry, kid. I'm so sorry." At that point Siobhan and Saffron both realized, but it was far too late.

"Why?" said Siobhan.

"I interfered." Saffron shook her head.

"You intervened. And due to your intervention, she is here with us today." She shook her head again.

"No, more than that. If what Tallulah and I suspect is true, and that is why she looks as she does? She, like her sister Ria, need never fear age or infirmity."

"Still a kind of shitty thing to do to somebody without, y'know, their Consent." Yeah, I think my ladies realized at that point that the butcher's bill for me staying up for a whole assed fuckin' week without sleep had come due. Marie and Tallulah stepped up, lifted me away from Aoibh, who for her part turned back to Siobhan and latched on the moment a nipple came in view, and Translocated me up to the Bath.

They held me there in the steaming water until well after the girls had come and gone, then spirited me off to the Bedroom, where they forcibly removed any dregs of consciousness I had left. I woke up shortly before sunset.