She still loves you.

Okay fine, I’ll admit it. I spent a lot of time (ha) thinking about what my Pa said about Ma. Even though I was supposed to be thinking about Mesec and finding his black ass, but Mesec and Ma were in the same lobe of my brain and there was no way I could think of one without thinking about the other, and that was an emotional clusterfuck all by itself but now there wasn’t a question of me being a big growned up and facing my fears or whatever family drama I had imagined. I didn’t have a choice. My Pa needed help and as much of an assjerk he was he still decided to trust me for some reason, so it’d be pretty shitty if I let him down via inaction. So.

Here I was on the mountain top, the really pretty place with all the flowers ‘n shit and the nice mountain air and the majestic crap that made this place be called “heavenly”. A storm was rolling on from somewhere, and though the rain probably wasn’t about to hit this place, the clouds were dark and gave the place this dampish, twilit feel to it. I sighed a great, heaving sigh; this was the last place I had seen Br—where I had seen Mesec. It was with that one chick that really grinded on his nuts, maybe a year ago, I dunno, it just felt like it had been millennia since I last saw him gawk and hee and haw and twitch in that embarrassed way he had. Also, Pa had said Ma was in the mountains—and yeah okay jeez I was looking for her as much as I was looking for Mesec. Cry me a river. I don’t know why, but it felt like seeing either of them was important for what Pa needed from me. Or something.

So I loitered for a bit, alternately screaming “MA” or “BRO” or “MESEC” until it got kinda boring. And then I thought, Dude, what if they’re not even here? But I didn’t like thinking that because fuck that would make things hard, so I did them both a favor (if they were in the area) by rearing on my hindhooves, shooting a blast of lightning into the dark, roiling clouds. A great thunderclap cracked like a whiplash as the magic left my body, singeing the grass around me ever so slightly, splitting my ears from the sound of it. There. There was no way anyone could miss something like that. So then I began to pace some more, eating here and swatting a burnt-ass fly there and thinking about my Bro and the Goddess that actually gave gross birth to him, my Pa and his bitter, cynical laughter, my Ma who may or may not still love me.



@[Ophelia]



talk

…and I was still thinking to myself, wondering about my Pa’s voice and trying to remember the last time I had heard my Ma’s and trying to remember what it was like living with Ma again, back when I was super tiny and before I knew what it meant to have a dad and spending my days playing with Jiji. The golden days. I was suffused with the music of my own thoughts, trying to remember my Ma, trying to see her clearly through my eyes—and then, suddenly, she was there, coming right at me, a white bat straight out of the hell of my imagination or maybe just from a really, really steep side of the mountain—

--but there she was, flying right towards me, bolting at me, for me, almost right into me—

--but I was backing away just as fast with quick steps, and yeah, I screamed a bit. Nothing fancy or girlish, just a huge “AAGH” because fuck that was shocking and I was already starting to feel shitty because you don’t just back away from a loving embrace from your Ma, yo--

--but there I was, refusing to touch my Ma, and I watched her grope empty air, wanting me, needing her child, and I…I felt sick. Something was snapping inside me. I didn’t….it’s not like I didn’t want Ma or anything like that. It wasn’t anything personal. It’s just…well, the last time someone I loved flew at me—well. I ain’t gonna talk about that. And I guess that little hush-hush incident scarred me more than I realized. I wasn’t gonna be touched any time soon.

Which was great for guilt because now I was in a perfect position to see her cry, and I watched the tears she was shedding for me with horror. It was breaking another thing in my gut, seeing those happy tears of hers, and I could feel my own threaten behind my eyes. And then Tinek was there, and he was just a part of my childhood, too—and there he was, all big red eyes and huge, silvery lizard grin at the bottom of my feet, and I could do nothing but stare down at him, gaping as stupidly as I gaped at my Ma, except now a tear slipped passed my weakened defenses and fell toward the silver-plated dragon. Then I built my walls a little bit higher, and that was it for my crying.

Roskuld.

I looked back up at my Ma when she said my name (so differently than how Pa had said it), still with that struck-dumb expression on my face, since I know how to emotion. And she apologized to me. Said sorry to my face, trying to make amends for her absence—it made the last thing break into pieces in my stomach. At that point, I urgently needed something to break this—this block in my heart, because I was so glad to see her, you have no clue--and I opened my mouth to forgive her and I framed the response in my mind and spelled the word in my head (f, o, r, g, I, v), and I, and I—

--my voice got stuck.

And I tried again.

And I couldn’t say anything.

Because I couldn’t lie.

Something else fluttered in my body, but this time it was panic. I tried to say the words again, and my voice got stuck again, and then I really started to go nuts because I couldn’t say anything. Not, “Hi, Ma”, or “What’s up” or “How’re you” or “It’s so good to see you” or even “It’s okay Ma, I forgive you” or anything. Not a single word. I was still stuck on her “sorry” and how to respond to it—because the truth was, as frustrated and confused and lost (and scared) and furious as I had been for the past year or so, I didn’t care to for her to be sorry. I didn’t want her to be sorry. I wanted her to be there.

I wanted her to be my Ma.

But like I said, I’m extremely adept at emotion, and clearly I could articulate myself and my feelings and just how happy and relieved and even more afraid I was to see her. But that was all sarcasm so you pretty much know how much I was flailing at that moment. I was desperate—I blurted whatever my voice needed me to say, instead of what I thought was the right thing to tell her. And it ended up being: “I talked with Pa.”

I don’t…know why I said it. I don’t know what it meant. I just said it, hesitant, kinda monotone and kinda not, filled with...nothing. Or Maybe it…was…everything at once, all the things I was feeling, all the confusions that had blindsided me since I woke up with this body of mine. I talked with the Pa I never knew I had; I saw him, and he was a god. Why didn’t I know I had Pa? Why didn’t I know about the gods? Why did you keep him from me—why did you hide it, Ma?

Why did you hide it, Ma?




talk

*"What did he want this time?"*

Oh.

Well.

I did say that I didn’t know why I said what I said. I….well, I knew but I couldn’t put it into words, this overwhelming emotion in my breast that I sorta tried to communicate using my Pa as the handle. But just like I didn’t know what I was doing—well, there was no way I was gonna expect my Ma to react like that. I mean, y’know, I’m not the most social motherfuck to stalk this green land, which just means I’m the authority on avoiding dumb bastards. I know the image of disgust when I see it. And like before, when I slowly realized my Pa was an absolute, bonafide jerk, another realization was slowly settling on my shoulders while my brain worked it all out by itself (since it was starting to get good at that), and I started to understand why I didn’t know my Pa at all while I still lived my life next to Ma’s teat.

*"Whatever he wants from you, I want you to know that you have your own free will. You can live your life independently. He...”*

He said that, Ma, I wanted to say; I was screaming it in my head, at any rate. But my mouth still didn’t want to work for me and my voice wanted me to say something and I didn’t know what, so I was stuck being mute and trembling slightly (only on the inside) and listening and waiting on the phrase I needed, feeling something cold slide down my throat and into my stomach.

*"He wants you here for some reason. You were born for a reason. He is too calculating and too..."*

He gave me a reason, Ma, I said uselessly in the confines of my skull, the cold in my stomach burning somehow, starting to shrivel me up from the inside, because hate’s bitter and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. My breath became shallow because it was so cold, and I guess thunder rumbled nearby but I wasn’t listening to it; the thunderheads in my mind were building fast and they were crashing.

*"You were born for your own destiny. You do not have to be his half-mortal puppet if you do not want to."*

“He….” said that, too. I couldn’t finish it; I had no breath, and I didn’t trust my voice anymore, and I guess it didn’t trust me, because suddenly I was blurting something else. “He told me you still loved me.” I guess the most surprising part of my voice was the wonder that sentence contained, the wonder I felt when he told me that and I didn’t even ask him to even though it turned out to be the one thing I needed to hear.

And he was right, wasn’t he? Look at her! On top of the cold in my breast I was feeling extra shitty, because I...I’ve never seen my Ma look so small before. So defeated. And it was my own dumb fault for backing away, for not wanting contact so fast. I wanted to go up to her and hug her; I wanted her to stop being in pain. She didn’t want to talk about Pa—okay, that’s cool, no biggie. I was gonna ask some things—like what’s with the gross birth and why’d they shagged in the first place—but that could wait, it could wait, because my Ma was in pain and she needed my touch and I was gonna go up to her and forgive her and nuzzle her against her chest like I used to do and it was gonna be alright.

And none of that actually happened.

What did happen was that I looked in her eyes, and the clouds above us continued to rumble and churn and darken with the tease of rain. “Why did you have me?” My voice was soft; for once there was no trace of impudence, no harshness, no bite. I was talking to my Ma; I was…I just wanted to ask.

Because she said she was “sorry” and my brain said “horseshit” because I didn’t care for that. I wanted my Ma, I wanted her there, I wanted her help and her love. I wanted a Ma. And I’m not sure how she can be one if there’s a whole half of me that she hates with a burning (icy), seething passion.

I was started to think Pa had lied. And that was a whole other crisis. One of us had to be right and I hoped to high heaven that it wasn’t me.




talk

*"I did not choose to have you…"*

My heart skipped a beat—

* "Or... maybe I did, someway, when I was not truly myself."*

--but then it started up again, beating faster than ever, a bead of sweat trickling behind my ear as my breath became increasingly labored under the cold and the confusion. I ducked down my head so that I could rub the itchy spot behind my ear with my knee; my movements were jerky, impatient, because something wasn’t ringing right in my ear as I listened to Ma’s explanation. She’s lying was my first thought, which disgusted me and I hated myself for it, but come on! The way she stuttered, the hesitance—you could almost say she didn’t remember exactly what had happened, which was absolute bullshit, because that’s Ma’s shtick, isn’t it? To remember shit? Hell, getting into an argument was always a horror growing up, because she remembered exactly what happened and what she had said and even things you had said and done and didn’t remember doing.

But then she was talking more and I listened with an iron jaw, about some shit with some Sun God (how many Gods ARE there, even?) and some quest she went on and some tragedies that were committed under his watch and pretty much how a whole buncha shit was fucked that I was conceived in the middle of. It was…hard to believe, this image of Ma with no memories. It was like imagining a playboy Mesec or a timid Jiji. It didn’t make sense and I started breathing hard because my lungs were locking up and the air huffed through my nostrils like mini-snorts and I started to tremble harder now, almost visible, because I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

Why would she lie to me, though? I shook my head as I listened, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, but dammit why would she do something like that? Pull some strange yarn out of her ass just to get me to trust her again? If she didn’t want my trust—hell, if she didn’t want me, she wouldn’t have come here. She’s not the one who ran from my embrace.

Maybe the Sun God sent her, this nasty voice in my head was telling me, Pa sent you to see Mesec, maybe another god sent Ma to look for you. Which I promptly ignored, because dammit I was sick of this…uncertainty radiating around the people I was supposed to love, those I was supposed to trust. My breathing grew rocky and my sides were shaking now with the weight of it, and I guess it was the moment to decide whether I had a Ma or not. And even though the circumstances were pretty shitty I guessed that she was my Ma somehow, someway.

“I didn’t…” I said again, but this time my voice was broken and I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say: I didn’t know why you left. I took a breath a tried again. “I thought…” you left because of me. I thought it was my fault. And it was easy to think that, once I saw the sneer on her face at the mention of Pa—it was easy to think that I was the last remnant of the one memory she didn’t have, didn’t care to have. I shook my head in frustration at my failing voice—and as I did, I found that my eyes were wet, and there was no stopping it.

I guess my body was calling for action instead of more talk, and I sorta stumbled my way toward Ma, half blind from thick, quickly welling tears, reaching for her just as she had reached for me before. “It—it was hard--“ I hiccupped, my breathing getting ever more shallow as I tried to tell her what it was like. It was so hard running around, trying to figure out what when I never knew how, or why. But the more I thought about it the more I sobbed, and the more I sobbed the harder it was to stop, until I became this….mess of tears and ugly snorting and crying, blubbering like a baby, because I still felt that way. Like some kid who had lost her Ma in a huge crowd, and she didn’t know what to do.





talk