New
An abandoned town, Ýmirheim
25th September 2003
I… never thought, nor dreamt of, not even in my wildest dream, which shows how unimaginative I am… well, of my other mother being a… a… a… monarch; a monarch of a planet, or maybe even a chain of planets. A monarch – a queen, like the Queen of the United Kingdom, but in a far larger area. It’s… mind-boggling.
Then again, Aunt Petunia ‘lovingly’ said that my mother – her sister – had been a drunk and a wastrel, before I found out that she had been a witch and, later, the wife of a lord of a wealthy, well-known and well-skilled House.
And comes the question, too, from this: Who is my original mother and who is my other mother, actually? Who is first in my mind, if not in reality: the one who lost me not by her own volition or the one who died to protect me?
But still, a Monarch–!
…Who has been – marginally – regal only a tenth of the time of our (re?)acquaintance, who has spent some of the other time being blatantly cuddly to… her child?… in front of her subordinates, who is – in the remaining lots of the time – a blubbering mess, who is garbed in an Earth-style jacket and Earth-style trousers and Earth-style boots despite her being the monarch of another planet….
And, if it’s not enough yet, she has just shown me what Luna means with being a blue angel… by turning into an absolute giant whose skin colour is deep cerulean blue, with the white markings I saw on the crystal picture earlier, and also red, glowy eyes set on a bald head with craggy face.
And I have been changed, too, by dint of being in her arms.
The weather feels… pretty warm… in this skin, even though all of my clothing has somehow vanished, or maybe got vanished by her, and… she… has just reclad me in a soft, fluffy white loincloth she pulled from nowhere. And I feel faint, looking at my own blue skin, tracing it with my black fingertips, which look and feel more like claw-tips, also with eyes that notices every detail – even more than the sharp sight of the kiddy body I inhabited just now.
And as we rejoin the others – or rather, the others rejoin us, by whatever unseen means she has just employed – and, shockingly, she lets me walk on my own beside the also-free Neville and Luna, I find that I am taller than Neville, if skinnier. The latter provokes displeased mutterings from our… escorts… and she is none too happy, either.
Huh, go figure: The Dursleys’ tender care during my childhood apparently extends to this new body, not only to my adult self in the other – human – one. Fortunately they will never have any reason to encounter her…
…Will they?
Well, an unproductive thought, that, so, “Are you all right, Nev? Lu?” (Huh. My voice is changed, too, in this form, if less drastic than in my kiddy body.)
“I am,” Neville affirms. But Luna is silent, too busy looking me up and down and sidewise, with clinical interest and appreciation that doesn’t feel much better than a personal one. She even has to be helped navigating the more broken parts of the street by the two of us and, once, by her escort (Maybe? Well, they’ve all changed into bald, red-eyed, blue-skinned giants, anyway, as if the changes to her and me have been an implied permission.) because she is too busy gawking at me. And she doesn’t help, ambling behind the three of us – in almost-mincing steps, I note, to adjust to our far, far shorter legs – and exuding palpable amusement at my expense, if somewhat grimly so.
With that kind of amusement, she must have figured out – or even felt – how awkward and bothered I feel, not to mention dizzy from all the revelations she’s dumped on me in such a short time.
All right, a lesson, that: Never, ever ask too many questions in one go, if you aren’t prepared to receive the answers in the same manner. But still, she could have been less amused for the sake of my pride! Grim amusement doesn’t make it better.
And then, as if I’m on a timed schedule, without any warning whatsoever, she plucks me up from among my friends and back into her arms.
“Why did you – why did Amma do that?” I yelp, changing the mode of address hastily when she sends me a displeased glare. Meanwhile, I squirm mightily to hopefully be able to slip back down.
“Hush, little kip,” is what she says, as she pins me sidewise in her embrace, with my face buried in her chest.
Her bare, nippleless chest, I notice. (What an absurd mind! Why do I notice these little, useless things instead of the much more important ones like the possible approach of a hostile force?)
When I manage to shift round a little, evading the rather strong scent emanating from what should have been her breasts, which I’m afraid would have made me homesick for here and never let go, I spy fat bundles of fur and leather and thick-looking cloth being carried by two of the giants—“milaðen, as she said it. “Are those Neville and Luna? What’s wrong with them?” is what naturally come snext, despite my earlier wariness of asking questions, and the Dursleys’ drill of “never ask questions if you wish to be treated semi decently.”
“Humans tire easily, Loí, especially in climates that are considered extreme for them,” is the answer.
And then, I return to being a giant baby.
Go figure…. Apparently this ever-so-special escort of mine just allowed me to look round for a little while, instead of me being able to get freeish on my own.
“How did they know to pick my friends up? How did you – Amma, ow, okay okay – time it with them to do the same to… Loí?”
Well, apparently, I am not repentent enough about asking more than one question in one go. And, apparently, despite being so tender and even ginger at times, cuddly and clingy to boot, this newfound mother of mine is not above boxing my – barely there – ears should I displease her!
And then, blithely, she answers the questions in the same manner as I asked them, with just traces of her earlier display of grief remaining in places.
She refers to her earlier answer about how she knew I was here and alive, about how she and her subordinates had come up on us undetected: mind-to-mind communication, from mental perception, otherwise named “osla,” which, added to “elða” that is the… milaðen’s magic, and the five other senses that humans also possess if in a much more limited way, make up the set of senses in this body that I am yet to learn afresh, much like a baby new to the world.
And then she murmurs about coordinating mind to mind with Ýmirheim’s elite forces to pick us up at the same time (which she told me earlier the four milaðen that gate-crashed my little party belong to), about the big family of spouses and children that makes up this particular group, about her wanting to introduce them all to me, about the “sweet snow” that she wants me to try….
I slide into a state of restful semi-awareness as she describes the said “sweet snow,” which is apparently this place’s version of ice cream, with various dream-like images running across my eyes instead of the reality.
Go figure. Even sleep has changed.