Chương 1138: Day One Thousand One Hundred And Thirty-Five

Dear Diary, I've always heard things like 'life comes at you sideways', 'life comes at you fast', 'life doesn't change when you expect it or when you're prepared for it, it hits you out of the blue on a Tuesday afternoon'. Yeah. At least it wasn't afternoon. Then again, given how often I've heard shit like that, I guess maybe I might have expected that. So it only makes sense that it happened on Tuesday night. Well, started on Tuesday night. I'm... I'm really not all right.

I'm not as far from all right as it's possible to be far from all right. I guess hitting that low after Yule had that going for it. My 'rock bottom' is so low that I can be as not okay as I am now and still not be at rock bottom. Then again, I've still got my... This time I didn't run away from... I can't even say the word. Because despite everything I feel like I don't deserve them at the moment. So yesterday just after sunset, with the sky still glowing to the west, Olga asked me if I knew where her son was.

Jarl 'Big Willy' Johnson, half Jotnar, half Dwarf prince of Norfolk. Okay, I wasn't sure he was technically a prince, but he was Olga's son, not to mention a friend of mine. I'd met him and Olga both before I knew they were related, not that it mattered. On top of all that, he was also my birth mother's Consort. I shook my head.

"Yeah, I haven't heard from either of them for a while. Okay, I pulled her in for some identity confirmation a little bit ago, but she doesn't usually bring him along." She nodded her understanding. When she next spoke, it was with unaccustomed uncertainty.

"Could you...?" I Mimicked her Size for the sole purpose of kneeling and putting my arms around her. Woman of her stature didn't get many hugs, and I could tell she needed one.

"Sure. I'll just..." I tugged on Domnu's emergency coring tentacles, then trailed off at the complete lack of Domnu. I hadn't really tugged hard enough to force her to me, but she normally showed up pretty much immediately when I tugged on her leash. Probably using some kind of outside of Time woo to do it. I realized Olga had noticed me trailing off.

"Sorry. Just odd that she's not here by now." I shot her a smirk as I shrunk down to my normal size.

"Maybe she's finally got some kind of understanding that showing up with Willy balls deep might be a faux pas." Olga barked out a laugh, but I heard the brittleness in it.

"If he's that involved, I don't think he'd thank me for the interruption." I nodded, then gave her a little tentacle clap on the shoulder.

"I'll go see what's up; even if he's not with her, she'll know how to find him."

"Thank you, Goddess." I gave her a look, and a much more natural chuckle slipped out of her.

"Thank you, Tabitha." I really didn't want to watch my mom getting it on with a dude whose wedding tackle was bigger than her torso, and I figured the still image would be better than live action, so after doing a little proto-Divination that I'd picked up during my studies yesterday, I stepped to her and outside of Time both at the same time. I wasn't quite sure where we were.

I guessed at M-Space, because holding myself in midair wasn't as much of an effort as it was in the Mortal Realm, but I was pretty sure being outside would keep me from falling too. Midair was another data point, and from the complete lack of terrain below us, I guessed somewhere over the ocean. Some part of me registered that the sun was more or less precisely on the far side of the planet. I should have realized something was... Big Willy was nowhere to be seen. Domnu hovered there, not looking at me.

Her normally expressionless face looked... Pensive.

"Hey, Mom." She didn't look at me.

"I have come to a realization." I wasn't sure what the fuck she wanted to talk about, but I figured here, outside Time, we ironically had all the time in the world to chat, and I figured letting her infodump or whatever would make it easier to get information on Big Willy's whereabouts.

"What realization?" She paused, then almost like she'd just realized she wasn't looking at me, rotated to face me. I realized just then that she'd been staring more or less straight East.

"Your tentacles have been corrupting me." I took a deep breath.

"Yeah. Okay. Possible. Likely, even." I wriggled them a little, focusing on them, but they didn't seem any more or less Domnu-esque than they had. She twitched.

"You... Do you want me to take them out?"

"Yes." I considered it, shifting them without really thinking about doing so.

"Stop." I froze.

"Okay." When she didn't say anything else, I asked, "do you want me to take them out or not?"

"That is the wrong question." I took a deep breath and a firm hold of my temper, because dealing with her always left me a little annoyed. Oddly, she hadn't really pissed me off, just annoyed me.

"What's the right question, Ma?"

"Whether you should remove them." I rolled my eyes.

"Should I remove them?" Without any of the head twitches a normal Human Adjacent person might make, she said, "No." I realized right then I'd be getting some good deep breathing exercises tonight.

"Why shouldn't I remove them, Ma?" When I asked that question, she twitched, like she wanted to move closer, wanted to look me right in the eye, so I shifted closer as she spoke. I think that might have been why it took me a moment to register what she was saying, "Because if you do, I will remove the Mortals corrupting you." Of course, me taking a few moments to really register what she'd said didn't meaningfully affect the conversation.

She just hovered there, patient as only an entity that had existed since the Big Bang could be. Then the meaning hit me, and I barked out, "why the fuck would you say something like that?"

"The reason is multifaceted." I sucked my teeth.

"So spell it out for your wayward, hard of thinking daughter." She head tilted just the tiniest bit.

"As you wish. I am your mother, and your corruption has left me with a desire to... Nurture you. This means informing you of things that will affect you. Such as the eradication of the Mortals corrupting you." I shook my head.

"No, Ma. I meant why would you say you're gonna kill my family?" Her head straightened.

"Because I intend to." Something about the utterly deadpan way she'd said it chilled me deep inside.

"Mother?" The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yes, Daughter?" She'd returned to staring eastward. On a hunch, I Co-Located straight up. Then east. At which point I realized she was staring directly at the Homestead. While standing at Midnight. Her point of power here on Earth, whether in the Mortal Realm or M-Space.

"Where's Big Willy Johnson?"

"Who?" Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

"Your paramour? Your Consort? Dude whose whole life was dedicated to wooing you?" Without taking her gaze from the Homestead, she said, "I removed him." I froze.

"Bring him back." She turned to face me again.

"I am not you, Daughter. Once I have removed something from the universe, it is gone." Some frozen part snapped.

"Why the fuck would you do that?" Her motionless face still seemed to convey the same as her tone, the one I'd use to talk to someone being deliberately obtuse.

"He corrupted me."

"What the fuck! How the fuck am I supposed to take that? You said I'm corrupting you! What, if I let you go are you gonna remove me?" This time she really did look surprised.

"You are my daughter. I will remove the corruption from you."

"You... The Mortals corrupting me? You mean our family?"

"I said nothing of Elatha, or Indech, or even Delbáeth or Gann." I clenched my teeth and fists, counting to ten before speaking.

"Oh. What about Isnomi?"

"The Menace? I will remove that which corrupts her as well."

"Oh, so she meets your standards?"

"Yes." That didn't lower my volume in the slightest.

"Okay, so what about Vulcan?"

"Perhaps."

"Conrad?" Now she looked conflicted.

"Perhaps."

"Oh, he's too Mortal for you? What about my other daughters? My kits?" She'd started replying before I stopped speaking, and it took me a second to process her answer.

"No, he is too corrupted." After a pause, she added, "as are your 'kits', of course." I closed my eyes.

"Mother?"

"Yes, Daughter?"

"I think you're full of shit. I think you've stashed Johnson somewhere, and you're testing me somehow."

"I am not."

"Then why the fuck would you be telling me all this?" She paused. For the first time in the conversation, she paused.

"Aphrodite."

"Dafuq? You want me to erase you?" She paused in thought a moment.

"You cannot, any more than you could erase yourself. You are strong enough to kill me, as you should, but you are not strong enough to do unto me as you did unto her."

"Fuck, not another psycho suicidal bitch tryna make me kill her." She paused again.

"The corruption in me aligns with my instinct, urges me to tell you that you ought kill me, for if you do not, I will remove that which makes you weak."

"Oh, my kids make me weak now?"

"Yes." I took a deep breath and tried another tack, because I was getting perilously close to losing my shit. Every time that happened, I regretted shit. I did not want to regret shit about my own fucking mother. Not again.

"So what, you were gonna just wait here at midnight?"

"I was."

"And what, you were just gonna swoop in and remove them all?"

"Yes." Yeah, I wasn't doing well when it came to keeping my calm.

"So if I remove those coring tentacles, I lose my family at midnight Homestead time?"

"No. Should you remove them, I need not act from my place of strength. I will remove them immediately." I shook my head.

"That's it. You're," I stepped us both to the Temple of Love, trying to ignore how much effort it took. Not as much as moving Jackville. Well, not as much relative, because I'm pretty sure I was stronger now than I was back then, "going in time out." I dropped into the oubliette with her.

"This will not hold me. I was correct, The Smith is too corrupted." I pulled the grate shut above us, shuddering a little in the sudden pressure, almost like an aircraft descending.

"How about now?" She just gave me a pitying look. I closed my eyes. Thought about it.

"So. I'm still thinking you're full of shit. That you're trying to get some kind of rise out of me. That you're mad about the tentacles, still upset that I beat you, and you're trying to scare me with threats to my family." She didn't reply.

"Here's the thing, though. When it comes to my ladies? To my kids? I don't get scared. I get pissed. So here's what we're gonna do." I waited. She just stood there.

"You listening?"

"Obviously."

"I am gonna call your fuckin' bluff. I am taking the tentacles out, and leaving you in the oubliette until I cool down. Which will probably involve a shit ton more 'corruption', now that I think about it. When I'm ready to talk again, I'll come back here."

"I will not be here."

"I. Wasn't. Finished. When I'm cooled down, I will come back and we can talk about, I dunno, some kinda parole or some shit like that. Maybe you can tell me where Johnson is, so I can go get him for his mom." Domnu interrupted me, some kind of genuine emotion painting her face.

"I ought remove her. I would not have another experience the pain you visited on me with Balor and Sengann." I nodded.

"See? See? You've got some kinds of emotions in there, some kind of empathy."

"Yes. Corruption."

"Okay. Cut that shit out. Because if you move even the slightest bit closer to the Homestead when I pull those tentacles? You are going in my fuckin' Maw and not coming back out." She blinked.

"That is not possible." I got up in her face.

"Try. Me."

"Remove your tentacles and I will." I took a deep breath. Some part of me from before, some part of me from deep inside that was an essential part of me refused to back down.

"So be it." I let her feel my tentacles slip out of her. She lunged. Not toward me. Toward the Homestead. Not 'a few inches', either. I stepped after her, un-Blending the coring tentacles, which held her motionless amid the fragments of Saffron's massive Ward over the Homestead.

"You lied." My face suddenly hot and wet, I got up in her face one last time.

"No. I didn't." Then I forced her down. Down past the West Tower. Down into my Maw. Again, not as hard as moving Jackville. Not as hard as welding an entire fuckin' peninsula back onto the continent from outside of Time and Space. Not quite. Then I stared at her very much not dissolved self. Not struggling like anything biological, but still trying to push herself up and out of my Maw through sheer force of will.

"Oh, so I can't eat you or some shit like that?" That strange look came over her face again.

"Of course you can. As you ought. You are my daughter. But you cannot, not here outside of Time." I thought about what I was about to do. Thought about it for a moment. For an eon. Forever. Hot salty moisture, wetness I refused to acknowledge as tears, flowing down my face the whole time I did.

"Tell me you're lying."

"I cannot, for I am not, Daughter." I slipped us both back into the flow of Time. She tensed, then relaxed. At first I thought nothing was happening. Then the Power hit me. Wave after wave, power like nothing I'd ever felt before. I don't know how long it was before the edges of her got even slightly fuzzy. I realized that somehow my own tentacles, the ones that held her to this form, this shape, held her together even as I ate her. I blinked. Sister? A moment later she was there, floating in the sky above my Maw.

Chosen? Before she even finished the word, she twitched, then jetted around to hide, to place me between herself and Domnu, motion-imaging pure raw terror as she did. I need knowledge from you. As I thought that, I slipped slim tentacles around her, holding them just outside her siphon, outside her mouth. She gently gripped them with her own arms, pulling them in. What knowledge? The Song of Impending Loss. We sang. Sister and I sang as I held my mother under the surface of my Maw, slowly dissolving.

The Song of Impending Loss is long, and has no proper ending. It ends when our mothers do, as is right and proper. My mother did not struggle. Not really. Not like a trapped animal, no writhing or screaming or lashing out. She simply kept up that pressure, that endless implacable will pushing her up and out of my Maw. I didn't let her. I didn't swear. I didn't scream.

I didn't give voice to the agony of watching yet another mother die, knowing that this time it wasn't some impersonal, random fluke of nature killing her. It was me. I wasn't raging, or full of Bloodlust, and even though she fought with all she was, like any sophont trying to survive... It wasn't midnight. It was my Maw. It was dusk; a time of Change. It was Vengeance for my friend, for my friends', for all that Svart had given me a lung piercing. For my friend's son. It was Justified. I couldn't let go.

Couldn't walk away. Couldn't leave her there to die, because if I did that, she wouldn't. She forced me to watch, forced me to stay, with the threat to my family. Forced me to end her. I wished I could really believe that. That she forced me. But whether she was forcing me or not, I did it. I held her under, slowly dissolving, singing the Song of Impending Loss the entire time. The Song of Impending Loss is long, and it has no proper ending. It ends when our mothers do, as is right and proper.

As I held her under, others joined Sister behind me, crooning the tune in harmony with me. I couldn't spare the attention to look. I had to watch her, hold her, pull back every bit of her that tried to escape, tried to slip free, tried to shove herself back up and out of my Maw. Tried to survive. Tried to return to her intent to 'remove' my family. Time is odd in M-Space. A day passed in the blink of an eye. A day dragged on for all of eternity.

Sister and the chorus of Clergy, Kraken and Human-Adjacent both, floated behind me, singing with me. The Song of Impending Loss is long, and it has no proper ending. It ended when my mother did, as was right and proper. Guess maybe I was wrong about one thing. It did end on Tuesday afternoon.