Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

Still kinda reeling over my realization yesterday. I mean, I get it, Phileo Heroes are not actually Magical Girls. They don't spout goofy catch phrases, they mostly don't wear stripperific costumes, and to be fair all of the ones who do that are in some way connected to me, and they don't shout out their attacks before they do them. Okay, Hero Potami does that, but in her case it's absolutely a long con. I really hope I get to be in the audience at some point when she pulls the trigger on that one. Some big asshole coming at her with an axe or some shit, she calls out 'Air Shield', he's like 'hurr hurr hurr me have dragon claw axe cleave through...' and right about then is when the Fire Bolt gives him a brain piercing.

I guess maybe it's a sign I've gone a little bit native that thinking about that whole scene makes me giggle. But only maybe. Seriously, I loved me some horror movies back in the day. I'm talking to the degree that I got pulled in for counseling at least once, in the 'you're in crisis, you need help, lets make sure you don't have access to guns or explosives' kind of sense. Couple other times it was less crazy, but still had me talking to the school shrink for hours. Then again, she was pretty cool. Wore these short as fuck skirts, legs for days, holy shit how did I not realize I was full on Bi from like age eight, oh, right, I'm a card carrying dumbass.

Fuck, now I've got to get somebody to make me a card that says, 'certified dumbass' on it. Really sad part is that I think the nearest laminator is a universe away.

But yeah, I used to mouth all the right things. 'I know the difference between reality and fiction'. 'Movies and television shows aren't real'. 'Hurting people is wrong, I know that'. 'It's just an outlet for my frustrations when I can't control my self-destructive impulses'. Oh, man, that one got me a whole assed pass to go talk to the shrink whenever I 'felt a depressive episode coming on'. Like I was actually depressed or something. Wait. Fuck. I think that shrink honey trapped me into coming to therapy for my depression. Damn that woman was smooth. Psychology and game wise. Never got a chance to find out about otherwise.

Don't get me wrong. I kinda suspect she might have used my schoolgirl pseudo crush to get me to come in for the little help she could provide, but she never actually said or did anything that indicated she was interested. Also I'm pretty sure she wasn't dressing that way to lure students into her lair. I mean office. You don't stop just outside the view of the doorway of one particular teacher's doorway every time and adjust your skirt hem up if you're looking to entrap random students. Heh. I remember telling that teacher about it while chilling in their room at lunch. They told me they were flattered, a little surprised at being the intended target of flirtation, but not, like, shocked. Apparently there's a big teacher's conference once a year back there, and while the administrator wannabes are all about getting their learn on, most of the teachers who gather are there to drink and hook up with somebody who understands what it's like to be surrounded by hundreds of hormone driven idiots on any given day.

Speaking of hormone driven idiots, mine did a pretty good job yesterday, so I felt good heading home after putting Vickerson to bed. As Saffron staggered over to me and settled in my lap, melting into me like so much cheese, I snuggled her in and stroked her hair. "Rough day?"

She shrugged. "Just... normal, I guess. I'm closing on completing my Inspect. I think. I hope."

"Really?"

She shook her head, but almost forced a smile. "Don't get all excited. I've been working on this for nearly a year and a half by now. While that's only half the time Franklin supposedly took for his Inspect, we both know that he spent most of his time fundraising and conning my ancestors out of their literal Souls."

"Oh, shit. I forgot something. Um... keep going, I just got a little bit of an errand to run."

She looked at me, smiled, then leaned her head against my chest. "Just poke me in the mouth with food when it's here. Do try to make sure I don't choke to death."

I smiled, brushed her eyes closed, and Co-Located to the Workshop. "Son? Are you around?"

A Hole Spawn claw slipped around me, and I nearly cracked it in half before I realized it wasn't alive. Just the shell, really, slipping around my waist. "Apologies, Mother Dearest. I wanted to show you my latest acquisition!"

"It's impressive, son. Taken from your live Hole Spawn?"

"Yes! Not taken alive, sadly, although the specimen itself is still hale and hearty. Frighteningly so, really. Would you like to see?"

"Sure! Lead on."

He led me into his Workshop, fortunately away from the section I knew held that fucking torture machine. I really shouldn't feel that antagonistic about a simple machine, but... torture. Trauma inflicted for the sake of trauma. I mean, in this case it had an actual good reason, as the closest thing to a, I dunno, 'Soul MRI' here and how has to offer, but still. Not sure if I've even begun processing that particular trauma yet. Not sure if I'll ever really be able to. Even thinking about it brings up echoes of the existential dread I felt back then. The worst thing isn't even that I think she was wrong. Or even that I think she might have been right. The worst thing is that somehow, I'll still wind up failing in the one thing she asked me to do.

At any rate, by the time I got my head out of my own existential dread ass, I was walking up a series of... 'permanent temporary scaffolding' stairs running up the side of the huge glass tank I'd put the Hole Spawn in. I held my breath, half expecting the kind of stench I'd experienced every other time I interacted with one. I realized as we reached the top of the scaffolding that Conrad had sealed the entire tank. Tubes ran from the bottom, through a complicated, disturbingly organic filtration system, and back to the top. "Hermetically sealed?"

"Indeed. Their odor is... Unpleasant."

"How'd you get the claw out?"

"A refinement of your brilliant scrying portals, actually! Such a fascinating variety of uses!"

I looked into the tank and saw... nothing. Just cloudy water. "You sure it's still okay in there?"

He shrugged. "I find its health optimized in murk, but if I clear the water entirely, it either goes into a frenzy or goes into torpor. I'm still experimenting with what causes each state."

I wanted to talk about animal abuse, but... Hole Spawn. Him leaving it in its preferred environment most of the time was way nicer than my solution, which would involve a size-Olga stiletto heel. "Can I see it?"

"Certainly!" He waved his hand through a simple shape, something vaguely reminiscent of an Air Shield, or maybe a Filtration Ward, and a moment later the filtration system moaned into action. Almost literally, the thing groaned almost like a lost Soul. Which, given whose Workshop I stood in wasn't entirely unlikely. I decided to talk to him about that after I'd asked him everything I'd come to ask him.

While we waited for the water to clear, I said, "so, how's the present for Siobhan coming along?"

He shot me a sly smile. I have no idea why this present in particular shoved her from 'vaguely offensive' to 'amusingly acceptable' in his eyes, but it did, and I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Oh, I'm still noodling about with it, but it's really just a question of finishing touches. Would you like to see?"

I shook my head. At his vaguely disappointed look, I said, "not before it's done, son." That didn't seem to mollify him, so I explained my reasoning. "Look, everything I've seen you make is exquisite. Pretty much literally beyond compare. The only things I've seen that do compare are literally other things you've made, and each one is such a unique work of art that it's stupid to say one is 'better' or 'worse', entirely because they're so unique. But seeing something you've made, then seeing that same thing after you've changed it? That's just... I dunno. I think it would mess with my head and diminish my appreciation for the final product."

Conrad, The Weyland Smith, just stood there staring at me for almost a full ten count. I almost started to get nervous before he cracked his best impression of a heartfelt smile yet. "Mother Dearest, that is quite possibly the greatest compliment I've ever been paid in words. Thank you. I shall endeavor to leave you as impressed as always. Although..."

"Although?"

"Although I do now have a desire to show you something at what you might call my 'first draft' stage, then show it to you in its finished form, and hear your opinion, your comparison of the two."

I tensed up a little, because I did not want to put myself in a position to upset Conrad, even as his Mother Dearest, but... he'd made a very trusting gesture to me now, twice. Turning that down was stupid. "Okay. I'm worried that I'll upset you, or worse be too uncultured to appreciate the differences, but sure. Just... not," I paused, trying to explain.

He stepped into the breach like a dutiful son. "Just not with the birthday present for your favorite pet."

I sighed with relief. "Yeah, I... Wait a minute, she's not a pet!"

"Oh, Mother Dearest. Aren't we all, in the end? Just bright, momentary flashes illuminating your Darkness?"

I reached up and lay a hand on his cheek. I absolutely did not intend in any way to be remonstrative about it, either, hoping my calloused fingertips could still be gentle. "Son. Oh, son. She's a person. You're all people. Just like me. We're all people, tryna live our best lives, the best way we know how, the best ways we've learned, the best ways we've been taught, in a fucked up, uncaring world."

For the barest fraction of a second, I thought I felt him leaning into my hand. Then his grin and eyes sparkled. "Oh, Mother Dearest. You counter your own argument within the argument itself, and yet you state every word as truth, and somehow they are. You are endlessly fascinating!"

I took a half step back, throwing up my best mock suspicion face. "No vivisecting your Mother without permission!"

"Do I have permission?"

"No."

He shrugged, then laughed. "Oh, well. You know I'd put you back together, good as new. Mom would kill me otherwise."

At this point the water had cleared, and the Hole Spawn came at us, doing its dead level best to beat through the glass between us. It hammered at it several times a second, never seeming to tire. Eventually I looked at Conrad. "How is the glass holding?"

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"Well, to begin with it's not actually glass. It's a metallic oxynitride several times stronger than glass. It's also a series of laminated sheets of polarized material interspersed with and I'm losing you already."

"No, no, that's fascinating!"

"Your eyes were glazing over, Mother."

"Like I said, fascinating! I was fascinated! Even better than if you'd given me cheese!"

He froze, tilted his head, then snorted out what almost sounded like a real laugh. After a few seconds of that, which cut off like he'd thrown a switch, even if his almost natural smile remained, he said, "Very well. It's not glass, it's a much stronger composite material comprised of very strong clear physical materials and reinforcing Mana Shapes."

"Doesn't it disrupt the," I got a sudden rush of brains to the head. "Does the polarization of the material block the Mana? Like, insulate it from whatever in the Hole Spawns, and I guess Dragons, messes with Mana Shapes?"

"Exactly!" I froze as he actually hugged me. "Oh, Mother Dearest! You forever surprise me with your insights. At any rate, that's why it can beat on the walls all it likes, and it won't get through."

I shot him a look as he stepped away. "After rectally violating Murphy's dog right in front of his face like that while it begged for the sweet release of death, tell me you've got, like, spare material lying around to patch the inevitable failure points?"

"Mother!" He looked so shocked I almost bought it. Then he pointed across the Workshop to what looked to be an endless series of bins of varying sizes. One of them that looked to be the size of an Academy Cell lit up briefly. "Of course I do. I am brilliant beyond the ken of Mortals and Gods, and arrogant beyond even that, but I am not stupid."

I smiled at him. "That's my boy!" As I turned to watch the Hole Spawn, de-scented and futile in it's aggression, I asked, "any chance you could maybe make one of those for your Mommy-to-be?"

"Maenad Marie?" I nodded. "The one who intends to bear you even more siblings to pester me with?" I glanced over at him, but he looked more amused than anything. Then he breathed out, "the one you fantasized about making such lovely white stockings?" I didn't pull a weapon, didn't draw a Blade, but I stood looming over him, and watched as he shuddered deliciously nonetheless. "Mother. Please. You've said she's family. She's even to become yet another maternal figure for me. I'm awash with them. I feel so loved and cared for." His deadpan voice was doing nothing for his not being dead in a pan. "A boy can fantasize about his step-mother without being punished, can't he?"

The tiniest messed up wicked grin in his eye caught me. Caught the worst part of my sense of humor. I snerked. I snorted. I may have groaned and howled a little as I tried to contain the entirely inappropriate laughter. "Son?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"It is entirely your fault that I now have an image in my head of you going at it hammer and tongs with Marie with her 'stuck' in a washing machine."

"MOTHER!"

"Your fault."

"I said nothing of the sort!"

"All you."

"MOM! Mother's teasing me!"

I looked down to where Saffron stirred fitfully. She'd fallen asleep in my arms waiting for food. "Shh! She's asleep. Rough day."

"Oh! I'm sorry. Please apologize to Mom for me. I... I guess I got carried away?"

"That's what..." I stopped myself. "Sorry, Son. I didn't really mean to offend you. But... those things I thought about Marie, about the others... those weren't my finest thoughts."

"Oh, I disagree most fervently. So artistic. Such vision." He held up a hand. "But I understand. Much as your gift for Sister Siobhan Darling is incomplete, not yet ready to be shown to the world, neither is your vision for your ladies' stockings."

I took a deep breath. Closed my eyes. "I am not now, nor will I ever, be ready to sacrifice my loving lovely ladies lives for... for anything, really, but definitely not for stockings."

He pressed one hand against his chest. "Lives? Lives? Whoever asked them for their lives? Do you think me a butcher, then, mother?"

I nodded. "Sorry, sorry, you're right, but skinning them alive isn't much better."

I didn't jump when he whispered in my ear from behind. "It's what I did to the tentacles you offered up when you needed leather stronger than anything in the Mortal Realm."

"Yeah. Well. It's what I needed." I shuddered as I thought about the bindings in the Bedroom drawer. "I can still feel that skin, you know."

"Of course! Only my crudest and most utilitarian, throwaway creations are made of dead flesh. The dead are forever decaying, but the living... the living grow and heal and change and threading that all back into itself is what makes them truly fit to last through the ages. For all eternity, for my more inspired creations." I swear he was almost about to lean back and do a full mad scientist cackle, but then he leaned forward again, close in, breathing out his words so I could barely hear them over the endless pounding of the Hole Spawn. "Their skin would be equally alive. Equally sensitive. Equally eternal. They would feel it each and every time you slipped them on, your skin against theirs." He paused as I definitely did not lie to myself about needing more than a moment to bring Her Dark Fatass and my own raging libido back under control. "I could even make you matching corsetry."

"Son?" I managed to wheeze out.

"Yes, Mother Dearest?"

"Stop the sales pitch. Now. Please."

He snerked. "That 'please' sounded very appended."

I laughed with just as little humor. "Son, I do try my best to model good behavior for you. Polite behavior. And saying 'please' in that instance was far more polite, and probably more productive, than saying, 'right the fuck now, you sociopathic freak'."

He frowned at me, playing the perfect little boy hurt. "Mother. I thought you approved of freaks? Aren't we to all 'let our freak flags fly'?"

Okay, look, there's a time when parenting an older child where you've got to pull the curtain back. Just a little. As a treat. I'm not sure who for. But that's what I've been told. "Son?"

"Yes, Mother?"

I swayed up to him, mirroring his own grin. Okay, I'm not sure it was a mirror. I am pretty sure that if I looked at Siobhan that way, she'd come twice, die, auto-Revive just to come again, then explode. "I absolutely would love those stockings with the brassiere and the thong and the garters. I would wear a different set every day. I would become a fucking clothes horse, eschewing my whole insta-changing trick and spending hours a day just changing my underwear, probably... no definitely while holding them there so I could watch their faces go slack as I slid them on. I would break the mold of fashion and fashion forward and go straight to fashion fucked up and wear them mix and match, and share them between my ladies as well."

I realized how captivated I had him when he didn't notice the Hole Spawn going quiet in its tank, didn't notice the shadows thickening and lengthening behind him. "I'd have you make matching sets for my little girls. Menace already thinks Ice Pop is cool, she'd think she was so much cooler when she felt her that way. Each of my girls would find someone, maybe someones they'd always want near them. Maybe even their sisters. Who knows? Not like they're blood related, not like any of them are boys, so what does it matter?" I heard the heat in my own voice, and realized I'd backed him up to the edge of the scaffolding when he stepped back onto the lid of the tank without realizing it. "Of course, neither are you and I, are we? So I could make sure that my favorite son is absolutely free of any possibility of prostate cancer by," he realized a moment to late as big tentacles slithered around each of his limbs, dozens of smaller ones slipping around his fingers, his face. "Milking him dry on every occasion I thought he needed it. Daily, at least." I looked deep into his eyes and ramped up the perky without losing any of Her Dark Fatassness' endless aching hunger. "I'd even wear a different lady every time, just to let them all have a turn with you, and you with them!"

He whimpered as I lowered him to lie gently against the top of the tank, then gradually lowered myself to kneel straddling his shins. "I think right here would be best. No, you don't need any silly fripperies like lace or cushions. What do you think? Pounding you into the tank as the Hole Spawn pounds at us from below? I heard it pounding, so there's got to be some vibration coming through. It'd be like one of those vibrating beds! Just to add that little somethin' somethin', y'know?" I inched forward, then hovered over him, not touching, leaning in until I could breathe into his ear. "You are such a nerd lord. Such an utter uber alpha nerd lord. Has your mother told you what I do to nerds?" I swear, he was trembling at that point. "Remember, Son. I know who you are. I would never tell anyone. I am your mother, and would never see you come to the slightest harm. But I know what you are. I. Find. That. Shit. Fascinating."

As I floated away from him, reveling in the pure, raw Terror leaking from his every pore, he breathed out, "so does Mom."

"Nice try, Son. I'm sure she does, and I'm sure that's why you like her so much, but the implication? Nah. She'd have shown me. Just to make me feel better about my own, ah, darker impulses. Which, despite how delectable all that would be..." I took one long, final moment savoring things, then gently let him go, caressing his cheek and ruffling his hair as I did, setting him back on his feet on the scaffolding. "That's not who I choose to be."

I watched, silently, as he took one long, centering breath, then the smile crept back onto his face. "I think it might almost be worth it to have my Muse unfettered." Then he shook his head. "But, as you say. Not who you choose to be." Then he got a sly look. "But if any of them should offer, willingly, and I solemnly swear that, like yourself, they would never be worse or less for the experience?"

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "No telling them, absolutely no sales pitches."

"As you wish, Mother Dearest. If and only if they come to me with the idea of their own accord."

I snorted, then got a rush of brains to the head. "You didn't tell them already, did you?"

"Of course not. Why would I? Why would I need to?"

"Huh?"

Loud.

Marie's voice in my head had me facepalming. I looked down, but Saffron was still asleep. Smiling dreamily, tongue darting out to lick at her lips, but smiling. Ah, shit. Ladies, you are under no circumstances to take the preceding as an endorsement of Conrad's... plan.

"But you would enjoy it?" Siobhan asked innocently from where she'd just fed Marie a Marie-sized hunk of steak.

I wasn't gonna start lying to my ladies. That sounded like a really dumb move. Yeah, also not a good reason to do so.

I was utterly unprepared for Tallulah's voice in my head. So we're only to do so if we would enjoy it. Understood, Goddess.

GAH! Fine! Do as you will! Do not say I forced, encouraged, told, suggested, or in any other way bought into this plan!

Right about then a part of me I was never really unaware of, but tried never to think about, heard Saffron mutter in her sleep, why won't they stay? as Soup Dumpling Saffron dipped herself up to mid-thigh in the Maw. Again.

Oh, fuck me.

Still sleeping Saffron reached one hand up and muzzily muttered, "after Bath time, love."

I shook my head and turned back to Conrad, thinking, all of you shoo, I need to talk to Conrad privately a moment. Please. The moment I felt them all giggling their way out of the forefront of my brain, I said, "So. Another like you're making for Siobhan for Marie?"

He frowned. "But... she'll never wear it."

"I'm pretty sure she will. Kinda asked for it."

He took a deep breath, then blew it out through his nose. "No. I... May I barter with you on this, Mother?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

"I shall make something. Not identical, of course, but clearly part of a matched set. But if she will not wear it with just as much eagerness as your... Sister Siobhan Darling?"

"Okay?"

"Would you wear it instead?"

I puffed out my cheeks. It's not like I'd never worn one before. "Okay. If you make it and Marie doesn't wear it, I will." I raised a finger. "No funny business!"

"Mother! Would I ever?" I just stared at him. "As I said regarding the patching materials, I am arrogant, not stupid."

I laughed at that. "Oh, hey, one other thing?" He tilted his head. "I want a tiara for my friend Lachlan. It's not a huge thing, though. I can go buy him one if you're busy. Or if you just don't want to."

He tilted his head in thought. "Give me a bit to think on it?"

"Sure." I thought about heading back, then realized. "Oh, shit. Totally forgot. You remember what I said about Franklin, right?"

His grin got inhumanly wide. "Oh, yes, mother." He frowned slightly. "I found it inappropriate to make anything truly... artistic from such materials though."

"Ah, well. Not your fault. I'm sure you did your best. I'm just asking because your Mom says she's nearly done her Inspect, and I figured showing off whatever you made of him might be the, what do you call it, piece de resistance on her total domination of everything that shitstain was?"

"I wouldn't call it that, but then, I speak Frank. However, I think she'll find the... utilitarian use I've found for his remains and Soul quite fitting."

"Care to show me?"

He smiled that little boy with a secret smile. "But I already have." I blinked, confused, and he glanced down and to the side.

I followed his glance, and my gaze landed right on the still heaving, groaning filter for the Hole Spawn's tank. "Really?"

"Of course."

I thought about the hideous stench, the scrubbing, the crying, the awful despair as it refused to leave my skin. Then tried not to imagine that being forced into my mouth, my nose, my lungs, my stomach... my Soul. I very carefully did not vomit just thinking about it. Then I thought about something I'd only been told about. A plinth, a monument to 'High Artificer' Franklin's contributors. The wealthy, donors who'd given money, their names and faces preserved for all eternity. The poor, the faithful, the ones who gave their very Souls to power Franklin's ascent to Archmage status, their names forever lost in the mud and erosion and lack of care from anyone in power, least of all Franklin himself.

It looked just about perfect to me.