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A Tail's Misfortune: B5 — 33. Week 9; A Mother's Needs
🕑 Added 2022-07-31 08:12:21 +0000 UTCPoV:
1. Sora Moore (Our Null-Void MC Fox Mom!)
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Sora let her aunts take over to set things up for their movie night; it was a weekend and a special occasion, so if they stayed up until 1 a.m., she was fine with it. Plus, she had to spend some time with her mother since she had come an incredibly long distance.
Her mother’s magic wrapped around Sora as she transported them to a golden road in a cosmic aether with unusual, diamond-shaped planets that she couldn’t even begin to understand; they folded in on themselves to pour liquid in arcing patterns before entering the small openings that sucked the multi-hued water in.
Mia stood next to her with a gentle smile that hid something Sora had sensed through the party; her mother made a short gesture at the twinkling nebula that painted the heavens above and abyss below. “Welcome to the Quantum Realm.”
“Cool,” Sora chuckled, honestly not caring where they were. “So… how are you?”
Moving along the path as it rippled in slow, wave-like patterns into oblivion, Sora let her gaze wander while they talked.
“I’m doing alright… Heh, missing the ability to see you whenever I want like I was able to do watching you grow up.”
A lump dropped down Sora’s throat, and she pulled her three copper tails around her body. “You knew about the drugs and Kari’s bullying… It must have been rough to see me go through so much, but I guess three years isn’t that long for you.”
“An eternity,” her mother whispered, drawing Sora’s gaze. “Time is whatever I want to make it in the lower dimensions, and I didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. Hmm-hmm. I suppose you can relate now.”
“I can! Hehe… Emilia is growing up so fast, but at the same time, I want to see what she’ll do next. I guess you kind of had the same feeling; all you could do was watch as Dad raised me for sixteen years while keeping this universe together.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” her mother hummed, finding her wrist behind her back while spinning in a short circle to study the resplendent display of shapes and colors blooming around them. “Seeing Wendy and you grow up together was magical, and now…”
“Haha. Yeah. Now, she’s kind of my sister, though she kind of always was. So much has happened in the past year.”
“Tell me about it.”
Lifting an eyebrow as Mia’s nine tails drew away to study her, Sora could see the anticipation in her shimmering, emerald irises; her mother’s modern outfit was a green pleated dress, black tights, red shoes, and an orange cardigan that made her seem so much more tangible than her ethereal aunt.
Appearing between twenty and twenty-three years old and a decent bit shorter than her, Sora had to smile at how hard her mother tried to connect to her. “I thought you would have already known everything.”
“I want to hear how you’d describe it!” Mia protested, looping her arm around hers. “We haven’t had a chance to just… walk and talk. Hehe. It may sound silly, but this is kind of like a birthday present for me, as well!”
Now curious, Sora locked fingers with her mother. “When is your birthday?”
“I don’t know.” The awkward, freckled smile her mother returned made her giggle. “We never celebrated that kind of stuff, and after so long, everything just kind of blurs together between dimensional spaces and timelines. Still, I plan to keep very close track of yours since it sounds like such a fun little celebration.”
Tucking in her lower lip, Sora sucked on it for a moment. “Hmm… Emi’s birthday will technically be coming soon, as well. How long?”
Her mother pulled on her arm, making them sway back and forth as her voice brightened. “Let’s go through the timeline!”
“Hehe. You really want this to happen, huh?”
“Yes! I’m recording it all very carefully. I have to keep these moments saved in case anything bad happens to the Threads of Existence; you can never be too careful.”
“Of course,” Sora snickered. “Where to start… hmm?”
Reflecting on her year-long journey to reach this point, Sora started to feel a tad overwhelmed by the number of things popping into her head.
“So much has changed… Stephanie was right.”
“Oh. Ron’s wife? She was shockingly proficient at keeping herself hidden,” her mother commented. “I couldn’t see what she talked to you about at the time.”
A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth while recalling Ron and Howie, her elevator attendants and two of the most trusted people she’d known most of her life. “She was a Celestial… Do you know what that is?”
Her mother shook her head. “Nope. Probably something Gloria and your grandmother dealt with. Was she nice?”
“Hehe. Prickly, would be the word I would use, but understandable, looking back. She and Ron were the first people who tried to help me understand my transformation, and Stephanie gave me advice that probably saved my life. I wonder how they are doing now. Can you tell?”
Copper ears pulling back a tad as she looked into eternity, her mother slowly shook her head. “Shortly after you were taken by that organization, Ron and Stephanie vanished into folds of space. She must be extremely powerful because I couldn’t sense her exit, and every thread they occupied has been burned to prevent looking back in time.”
Not fully grasping what the whole Thread of Existence topic entailed, Sora cleared her throat. “Stupid question.”
“Hehe. No stupid questions… well, maybe there are some, but you’re cute, so it’s okay!”
“Aww, I get a stupid pass! Thanks, Mom,” Sora snickered as her mother jumped up to kiss her cheek.
“Haha. Naturally! What’s the question?”
“Umm… can’t you just follow the burned threads to find out where they are?”
“Mmh.” Her mother frowned. “Mhm, normally, but unlike the typical passage through dimensional boundaries, it is far more difficult to grasp if they’re above the 12th dimension since they can transport themselves to anywhere within Existence instantaneously rather than traveling the lines.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” Sora sighed. “Hmm. Thanks for looking.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So… Man,” she breathed, running her free hand through her thick copper locks. “So much happened this last year it’s hard to even put the finger on where to start.”
Her mother’s eyes fell to their endless golden road as it swapped to a jade hue. “How was your transformation? I asked Frankenstein to make it as painless as possible, but I know it must have been so hard for you.”
“Hah! Yeah, that’s an understatement,” she mused, able to laugh at it when looking back. “The tail was the worst, which is crazy because the ears were killer. Still, the fear of not knowing what I was with so little help was really the worst. Aiden must have manipulated things that drew everyone away to force me to go to him and get entangled with Eric, Kari, and him.”
“It was a mess trying to understand how everything was spinning out of control,” her mother mumbled, ears pulling back as if she’d failed her daughter. “He was also putting pressure on the universe in unusual ways that distracted me during much of those three years they were in the universe.”
Sora shrugged. “It all worked out in the end, but it was rough at the start… That base, though…”
She growled, recalling Hell’s demons flooding the facility and the Cult of Sakura—the war between them—the insanity of being trapped in the middle of the eldritch followers and Bathin.
“It was a nightmare and so challenging to navigate with all the manipulation, but Aunt Inari helped me learn how to navigate that pandemonium—Bathin’s word,” she added at her mother’s snicker. “The Herald had to know what she was doing… she didn’t apologize.”
“That’s typical of her,” Mia mumbled. “Then it was the Vulpes Realm?”
“Mhm! Helping out Mimi a bit, chilling and relaxing after the crazy base stuff for a few weeks and then…”
“You became a mother!”
“Hehe. You became a grandmother.”
“Haaa…” Mia’s fingers tightened around her own. “I understand why your aunt did it, but I would have at least liked to be brought into her machinations. You were only sixteen… seventeen now. You’re too young to have a little daughter.”
“Hmm.”
Sora reflected on her struggle in those first few weeks. “It was tough, yeah… realizing it wasn’t just me I needed to look out for any more, and how much she looked up to me… how that could hurt her. Githa’s confusing comments about Nilly and meeting the Nekomata Faction.”
Her mother’s lips tightened. “Nilly is… a conflicted soul… but she tries to do what’s right, I believe… My mother believed in her.”
“Mhm. I like Nilly,” Sora whispered before a grimace came on when remembering the feral, First Generation Cat Founder. “Kari wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her, and I still need to pay back that debt.”
“You gained your third tail through it,” her mother whispered, glancing back at her swaying fluffy appendages.
“Yeah… and I couldn’t have survived what came after without it. Freeing the Yellow District… Mofupsi… meeting Devin and Hikaru… It all left me with a lot of questions about myself and awakening Dad’s side… Everything involved with Hikaru was confusing and twisty, but I did learn a lot.
“Eyia and Jin have been with me the whole time—hehe, I can’t believe I didn’t even realize they weren’t getting gradually stronger and stronger; really they were just keeping pace to not blow their cover.”
“Right!” Mia puffed out a long breath. “I was floundering, trying to keep up with everything, and then…”
“I got to meet you!” Sora chimed, leaning her head against her mother’s while slipping her arm around her waist to hold her closer. “Devin revealed Nephesh’s plot, Aunt Inari took on Kari’s uncles, and Aiden finally discovered he was the reason keeping you away from me by spinning chaos in the universe and ripping it apart for you to have to hold together.”
“You unlocked your father’s side…”
“What a… heh, forgettable moment!” she snickered since she’d lost all memory of it; still, she had at least been left with the recollection that she had her mother, and they’d meet soon. “The whole thing with Loral and taking down Naomie to fight to the Core of the Vulpes Realm to use Grandma’s energy to resurrect her… So many things in only a year.”
Mia’s head rested against her shoulder. “I wish I’d been able to be more helpful to you… honestly, I’m jealous of how much interaction you were able to have with your aunts.”
“Mom…” Sora mumbled, grip tightening against her side. “Your hands were protecting me the whole time… keeping everything from setting fire and falling apart. It must have been so hard when Dad just flew off into the Null-Void, leaving you without a word.”
She felt a tear touch her neck as her mother leaned into her. “I don’t know everything about your father… I do know he loves us, though. He left for a reason.”
Swallowing to keep her thick throat in check, Sora knew all too well what answer to give, an answer she reflected. “It still hurts, though, and you haven’t been able to talk about it, right? Want to?”
Her mother hid her face with her thick locks, and Sora slowed to hold her against her chest; she couldn’t explain why, but she could sense her mother’s pain in the back of her heart throughout the last two hours.
“I know you don’t have anyone but Aunt Inari, and… I’m sure she’s busy focusing on the quest to get grandma. Do you want to talk?”
“Hmm-hmm-hmm… When did you turn into such a young woman?” her mother sniffed; Sora bent forward a tad to nuzzle her mother’s ear, shifting her beanie around.
“Eh?”
“Hehehe.” Breathing into the twitching ear, Sora held her mother tighter. “I love you, Mom, and you don’t need to wait for my birthday to come and see me.”
“But…”
Hoping to still be in the Vulpes Realm, Sora wished to be taken to the White Room, and to her joy, the bright blue sky in a valley of lush, neatly cut grass and the vast field spread out below them from their elevated hill.
Sora guided her mother to the grass, lying side by side in the shade of a giant tree to stare into its branches. “I don’t need some magical, alien place to be wowed, Mom… heh, or were you trying to distract me? You’re such a mess.”
“Can tell, huh?” her mother whispered, puffing out a long stream of air.
Keeping a firm grip around her hand, Sora hummed. “I know you made this bracelet for me, Mom, but if you ever want to just talk and hang out, then I’m always up for a call. Feeling lonely?”
Her mother cleared away her puffy cheeks with her sleeve. “A little… which isn’t normal. I just… have dreams… nightmares something may happen to you, and naturally, I can tell you’re fine, but…”
“Can’t stop from worrying?”
“Mhm… Plus, your aunt is amazing at keeping on task and focused, but she’s so preoccupied with finding our mother, which is great…”
Sora looked over at Mia with a sad smile. “Aunt Inari, not a good talker? I wouldn’t have guessed that… You haven’t let her know how you've been feeling since Dad left?”
“No, I’m stupid,” her mother snarled, glaring up at the tree as if it were herself. “I expect her to just… know like my sister would typically be able to see. She’s too preoccupied. Why did your father leave?”
“Hmm…” Sora knew she only partially wanted an answer, with the other half just needing to let out steam. “I don’t know, Mom. I really don’t. He’s strong enough where he should be able to get Grandma back, right?”
“Huu-haaa… I know it’s not fair to think that way, but what else am I supposed to think… The second he was free from his shell, he took off out of Existence into the Null-Void, leaving you and me to pick up the pieces of this web we’ve been thrown into.
“I could look into the future and predict things like Ine does, yet… after seeing potential outcomes I would rather not have, I've been too afraid recently. We’re moving in fields and layers we’ve never touched to follow Anansi, and the Herald has shown us there are many… inconsistencies in our Existence… it is far grander than we first believed.”
“Afraid?” Sora mumbled, looking over at her mother’s furrowed brow.
“I believed I knew so much, Sora… I had secret knowledge about the Null-Void through your father and had explored the 12th-dimensional sphere to such an extent I feared very little, yet there are things connected to this plot that make me question so many things I was taught as a child. Haha. I was a big fox in a small pond.”
Sora reached over to slip her arms around her mother’s chest to pull Mia on top of her, happy to feel the warmth in her mother’s physical body for once, rather than a construct. “If you need a break, come over whenever you want, Mom. You have Emi, me, Wendy, and, hehe, Mofupsi is a bit of a weird one—addicted to pipes and being a slave—but technically, she’s kind of my sister and your daughter now, too!”
“I need to be looking for my mother…”
“Mom!”
“Hmm…”
“Would you want me to look for you if I was having a breakdown, or would you want me to make sure Emi’s stable, I’m good, and in top shape to come busting in through a door, spraying foxfire—well, Null-Void right now—and screaming for them to ‘come get some!’ ”
“Sora… you’re just the medicine I needed,” her mother giggled, snuggling in against her chest. “You’ve been busy making me more kids—weird, huh—and… you’ve been my anchor recently. I’m so happy you don’t hate me for not being there when you were growing up.”
“I told you…” Sora whispered, stroking the back of her mother’s head, smiling as she continued, “I’m here for you. I’ve had nothing but a long vacation while getting stronger to try and catch up. I want to help you, Mom… in any way I can. So come be a grandma and mom whenever you feel like it. No one will get mad at you for wanting to spend time with us.”
“Anytime?”
“Mhm! Of course, I can’t have you fighting all my battles, though. I gotta get strong enough to go grab dad and help you save Grandma. Ha! Haha!”
“What?” her mother mumbled, and Sora had no doubt she could have known exactly what she was thinking or feeling but wanted to be surprised; she loved her mother for that.
“Ugh… I think I need to get over the idea of Emilia getting actual combat training. She needs to be able to defend herself… Gah. Aunt Inari’s been trying to teach me that, I think. I can’t be everyone’s hero… they need to become their own heroes.”
“Hmm… Our own heroes, huh?” Mia whispered as she puffed out a long breath and adjusted Sora’s dress front in their lying position. “I want to be your hero like your aunt is.”
Sora traced her mother’s spine through her cardigan. “You already are in your own way, Mom… but do you want to help me with something?”
“Mhm!” Her mother pushed herself up to look into her eyes. “What do you need?”
“Kari… She let her Shadow loose for a time before caging it again, and we don’t know when it will attack. Plus, I’m scared that if I look inside myself to try and access your powers again, I could cause a similar problem.”
She hissed, lips drawing in. “I know those don’t sound connected, but they are.”
“Mmh-uh,” her mother shook her head as she pulled back to sit across from her, and a bright charm radiated out of her again. “It shouldn’t be that challenging to connect with your Vulpes Magic once more.”
“No?” Sora asked, swapping to her side to frown at the object around her hair as she subconsciously maneuvered her chakram to her front. “I’ve tried to use it with my desires like before, but all that responds is Dad’s side. I think his side is suppressing your side.”
Her mother’s light-copper hair swung against her shoulders. “That isn’t how they interact.”
Now confused, Sora removed one of her copy chakrams from a tail to hover between them. “They do counter each other, though… My Null-Void wants to consume everything, and Dad’s side is winning the tug-of-war… or at least that’s what I feel.”
Mia settled in as her nine tails spread out to point at various magical designs she crafted in the air. “Null-Void’s base survival instinct is to gather to maintain… You see, it is used to being in a place utterly unified with each other, or so your father explained to me.”
“Okay…”
Sora followed the illusion of colliding forces—white Null-Void flames and red Vulpes Magic beating against each other—it was what her daughter had explained to her in the past when she created the Seed of her Essence.
“Null-Void and Existence are not so dissimilar,” her mother happily instructed. “You have both within you, and though they are like fire and water, they are ultimately the same thing, which is how they can feed off each other.”
She blinked as her mother created an image she knew very well—the sun, plants, animals, and humans—an ecosystem.
“Plants feed off of the nutrients animals leave behind as much as animals feed off the plants themselves; everything functions in a cycle, but you have both Null-Void and Vulpes Magic, or a structure of Existence, within you… Without order, nothing exists; without chaos, nothing evolves.”
It suddenly clicked in Sora’s brain, and it was so simple; in fact, her aunt had taught her many of these same lessons, yet in more of a metaphysical relationship rather than a tangible example.
“I’m… an out-of-balance ecosystem?”
Her mother clapped excitedly. “Excellent! Mhm. It will eventually balance out on its own over time, but by carefully examining how your Null-Void and Vulpes sides interact within your Core, you’ll be able to better grasp the true nature of your power.”
“Huh… Could Kari do that with her father’s side?”
“Hmm. Explain to me a little about her situation,” Mia prompted, seemingly thoroughly enjoying the role of instructor.
She discussed how she had tapped into it once before, but it hadn’t been ‘unlocked’ until recently, and when Sora got to how it had been snatched away by Kari’s Shadow, her mother’s eyebrows drew together.
“So… she caged it?”
Sora nodded.
“It took the ‘access card’ to this side of her?”
“Umm, that’s what I understand,” Sora mumbled, watching a few clouds skate across the blue, primarily clear heavens. “It destroyed most of her Persona.”
Mia sat back, deep in thought, for several seconds as she smiled at Sora’s weaving tails. “I’m… not quite sure I see the problem. Yes, it caused significant damage to her overall personality—which could have been horrific—yet she gained control within the acceptable boundaries.”
Thoroughly confused, Sora shook her head. “No, Aunt Seiōbo and Aunt Nari—even Kari’s mom—they were furious at Kari’s recklessness; couldn’t she have become a mindless beast?”
Her mother giggled. “Well, yes, hehe, and no. From what you’ve said, Alva was more exasperated than fearful, and as for my, heh, little sisters, they’re terrified by our mother’s early warnings. There is a time and place to set one’s Shadow free, but boundaries need to be established.”
“How?! Can’t her Shadow break free and take over?” Sora asked, leaning forward and fully engaged now.
“Sure,” her mother shrugged. “However, one’s Shadow comes in many layers, and each is a visage of chaotic change in yourself. This particular Shadow wants something, and it seems to have achieved enough to keep docile. Can it break free? Possibly, but it doesn’t because…”
“It has what it wants?” Sora frowned, thinking back on how free and happy Kari had been over the last few weeks. “So… while Kari’s main Shadow was after primal chaos, that doesn’t mean the layer that holds the collar key, so to speak, is that same one?”
“Mhm!” her mother chimed. “All of my sisters faced every layer of our Shadow and Persona to gain total mastery over our personality and desires to cherry-pick the things we most liked about ourselves…
“Now, that’s not to say new layers cannot form through traumatic events,” she grumbled. “It’s like weeding; you need to keep on top of it… which is something I should do myself since it has been some time since I’ve done it.”
Drawing upon her conversation with Seiōbo, Sora tentatively asked, “What if… instead of weeding, it’s like… a jungle?”
Mia’s gaze softened. “Seiōbo will find her way, Sora, and if you start doing this process now, you may be able to help her manage it when the time comes; matters of raw power and magical finesse do not translate to personality management. Is there anything else?”
Sora got to her feet, feeling far more secure after talking to her experienced mother, who had solved both of her impossible tasks with basically a flick of her tail. “Thank you, Mom! You’re so awesome.”
“Hehe. Thank you, too, my amazing little daughter! You’re the spark that is bringing our family back together, and I cannot wait to see how much more you grow… more often since I’ll be seeing you every week?”
“I can live with that!” Sora laughed, moving to embrace her beaming mother, radiating an aura of joy that literally birthed a field of flowers around them. “Love you, Mom!”
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Comments
SME
Hehe, she still has time! Plus, Wendy would probably want to know when they get back. =P
Dont_like_to_Talk
Thanks for the chapter
Ryan
Come on Sora, now is your chance to actually ask what your species is called :p
